


Then Everything Else Happened

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abusive Parents, Coming of Age, Crushes, Family Drama, First Love, Football, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Original Character - Freeform, Secrets, Self-Acceptance, Senior year, Suicidal Thoughts, Summer Vacation, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Twin Brothers, Twins, attempted suicide, family expectations, lying, self-hate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 21:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11495127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: On the day of their eighteenth birthday, Jean's twin brother, Elliot, runs away from home. Instead of telling his parents the truth, Jean tells his parents that not only was he Elliot and not himself, but that he - Jean, had killed himself by jumping off a bridge into a river. He tells this lie because his parents have always favored Elliot, and he doesn't know when - or if - Elliot will come back. Somehow, Jean's parents, and everyone else believes that he's Elliot - All except Elliot's best friend, Marco Bodt.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (First of all, some of you may be readers of my other fics. And some of you may be waiting for Our Deepest Secrets to finally update. And now, some of you may be thinking that I've given up on that fic and moved on. Let me reassure you, I have not. Our Deepest Secrets will be finished.) 
> 
> I know people hate when fic writers add OCs to fanfics. But just hear me out on this one. It's not what you think. 
> 
> Also, thank you for reading!

It’s hard to find somewhere to start. I guess I should start with the day my identical twin, then my brother named Elliot, “killed himself”. 

On our eighteenth birthday, we were walking across the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge between Omaha, Nebraska, to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Given that we lived right on the river, this was something we did often. But today he brought a backpack filled with clothes and other shit he needed. I knew what was going on by then, at least somewhat. My brother had always said he’d leave one day. I just assumed one day was a much further away day. The whole walk something was wrong with my insides. I felt like I was in pain. But also lonely. I felt like I’d lost something important but couldn’t remember what. It was all kinds of the worst possible feelings.

This is why I thought about starting the story earlier. See, it’s one thing to say, “My identical twin brother ran away from home when we turned eighteen,” and a whole other thing to tell you the truth. Here’s why: My twin had every friend in school, and I only had one friend, my twin. For as long as I could remember, I was my twin’s shadow. Where he went, I went, and everyone he went to see put up with me. No one liked me, exactly, but Elliot wouldn’t go anywhere without me. And once we got older, and Dad finally retired from the military, and we stopped moving around, and ended up in Omaha where Mom was from, he joined the football team. When he joined the football team, he couldn’t take me with him everywhere anymore.

And maybe Elliot was relieved from the beginning that I wasn’t around anymore. Or maybe he realized gradually over time that everything was easier for him when I wasn’t there. I don’t really know. I’m a blaming person, but I didn’t blame him. He’d put up with me long enough.

Anyway, back to our eighteenth birthday on April 7th 2018 . Technically, we should have been seniors about to graduate, but our mom thought we were stupid or something when we were five so she didn’t let us start kindergarten until we were six. We were only juniors now, and Elliot had decided he couldn’t wait ‘til graduation. He had to leave the moment the cops couldn’t make him go back. 

We reached the halfway point of the bridge.

“It’s going to kill Mom and Dad,” I said, kicking at the curb. I didn’t add _it’s going to kill me_. 

“Trust me,” he said, “It’d kill them more if I stayed.” 

I couldn’t fathom what he meant. They asked to hear about his day before they asked to hear about mine, and when they did, they asked him questions about his day to hear more whereas all I ever got was, “You stayin’ out of trouble?” They went to all of his games, often forgetting that I needed a ride to work, to therapy, to pick up a prescription. When relatives called they went on and on about how excellently Elliot was doing in school, and how he’d undoubtedly be scouted and get a scholarship to an Ivy League college. And then, when our relatives asked about me too, my parents would be like, “Oh yeah,” and then they’d lie and say, “Jean’s doing good in school too.” That would be the end of it. They bought him clothes and asked me to wear Elliot’s old clothes like hand-me-downs, supposedly because I obviously didn’t care about how I looked but Elliot did. One time, literally, we both got in a car accident and when Elliot called them from the ambulance to let them know I’d broken a rib, they asked, “But you’re alright, right?” before he even finished his sentence. 

I swear to God, they resented me for never successfully committing suicide. When I swallowed all those sleeping pills I woke up in the hospital and couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. When I asked, Mom told me about the pills, but added, “But you didn’t swallow enough.” Immediately after, she looked shocked and ashamed she’d said such a thing as that, as if she was saying, “I wanted to bake cake, but didn’t have enough eggs.” When it happened, I seriously thought she was disappointed I didn’t die and told her so. She rushed to reassure me that wasn’t the case and started combing her fingers through my hair and humming to me.

For all of a second I felt reassured.

Then she accidentally called me Elliot. “I mean Jean! I mean Jean, oh honey, I’m so sorry. Jean, I’m sorry, I just –”

This was how it had always been. Elliot had to know that. 

I looked my twin in the eyes. We both had hazel eyes, a honey color, like our Dad’s. Both of us had sandy blond hair. I suppose, because we liked being twins, and sometimes we liked being each other instead of ourselves, we both had undercuts. The hair growing in at the base of our skulls was darker than the longer hair on top of our heads because that hair had been faded by the sun and the short hair was just growing in now. Both of us had similar builds, despite him being athletic and me being a hermit in our bedroom. Maybe that was because he was the kicker and not like – I didn’t really know any other positions. The one that threw the ball.

In any case, we looked more identical than most identical twins do by this point in our lives. Only our parents could truly tell us apart, and even we could fool them when we worked hard enough at it. 

I sniffled. The tears were welling in my eyes. I wasn’t a crier either, but shit happened. My brother was leaving me here alone in fucking Nebraska with two parents who only wanted one kid and ended up with two, who only wanted Elliot and would be stuck with Jean. I didn’t know how I would survive without him. I didn’t want to survive without him.

“When will I see you again?” I demanded. “Months? Years? Never?”

“Hey,” he said, and placed his hand on the nape of my neck, forcing me to look right at him. “I’m coming back for you. There’s just shit I gotta do first. And I can’t wait any longer.”

“What am I supposed to tell them?” 

“Tell them whatever you want. Tell them the truth if you want. I don’t give a shit.”

“And what’s the truth?” I said. “Where the fuck are you going anyway?”

“L.A.” He smirked at me, just like I would at him if I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to. “But don’t you dare tell them that. They’ll come looking for me if they know where I am. And, hey, you promise, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Have I ever told anyone anything you told me not to?”

He was just about the only person I could give my word to and keep it. I didn’t give a shit enough about anyone else. 

“Damn right,” he said. “Now, you make sure I’m outta here before you call Mom and Dad, okay? Make sure I’m long fucking gone.”

I nodded. 

“And, hey?”

I cocked my head at him, waiting.

“Take care of Mikasa for me, okay? She – she doesn’t know.”

“She doesn’t want to be taken care of,” I said.

He smiled, not so lecherously this time. “I know. But do it.”

I nodded at him. 

“Last thing,” he said, and he leaned in real close. “We’re always gonna be twins no matter what I do, right?”

“Fuck’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I mean, even if I did something – something you didn’t like, or maybe hated, you – you know,” and he looked down at his feet in yellow flip-flops. “You wouldn’t like…?”

“Dude, no way,” I said, placing my hands on his shoulders now. “There’s nothing you could ever do. We’re brothers. Forever.”

He shook his head. “Not brothers. We’re twins.”

“Twins,” I agreed. And it was good to hear him say aloud what I had always feared: that I could do something unforgiveable, and he would disown me as his twin. He was the only person I needed in my life. The only approval I needed. The only person I loved at all.

“Alright,” he said, and stuck his thumb out.

Barely ten minutes passed before a rundown car with two girls about our age in the front seats slowed and pulled over. They were giggling as he swung the door open and eased in. Then he waved at me and I waved back.

The girls drove off with my twin. 

Now I was just me. Just Jean. And I hated it.

From here, everything gets fucked up.

Because I didn’t call my parents and say, “Elliot ran away.”

In fact, I just stood on that bridge until one of them crossed it on their way home from work. My mom pulled over and got out of the car.

“Elliot!” she yelled, “Elliot, what’s wrong?”

At first, I wondered why she’d gotten us mixed up. Sure, sometimes she called me Elliot, but those were just slip-ups. The only time she called me Elliot because she believed I was Elliot was when I was trying to “look like” Elliot. 

I glanced down at myself. I was wearing Elliot’s clothes, I only just realized. “Hand-me-downs” but fairly new ones.

That alone didn’t explain it to me, but the more I look back on it now almost a year later, the more I realize it doesn’t matter why. It happened. And it made everything else happen.

I looked up at my mom and, as if God spoke through my body, I heard myself say, “Jean jumped in the river.”

…

“He what?” she said, looking annoyed.

I stood up straighter. Elliot stood straighter than I ever did. “Jean jumped in the river.”

And now, the tears I’d held back hours before when my brother still stood beside me, unleashed. I wasn’t crying in order to act. I was crying because he was gone, and now I had to face tomorrow without him. I felt like a little boy who’d been left behind in a grocery store screaming for his mom, only it wasn’t my mom I wanted. My brother had raised me.

My mom caught on.. She went pale. “He – he…? He _what_?”

“Mom!” I screamed, now frustrated that she hadn’t reacted the way I just had. “Jean killed himself!” Why wasn’t she screaming? Why wasn’t she crying? Panicking? 

She lurched forward to look over the bridge at the water below, as if anyone who jumped would still be there. It was a long drop into deep water moving swiftly southward. It wasn’t common for people to kill themselves by jumping off this bridge but when they did they were usually found miles downstream days later. 

I realized suddenly that it wouldn’t be at all unbelievable if they “never found” my body. My lie, which had come out of nowhere from within me, wouldn’t be caught. 

I started heaving. This was real. I’d done this and I couldn’t undo it. My mom, who was beginning to hyperventilate with me, really believed I’d jumped in the river. She really believed I was gone forever. And now I _would_ be. I would _have_ to be. Because I couldn’t _ever_ be like, “Remember that time I told you I died?”

I was stuck in this lie forever and it felt like forever had already passed since I told it. 

She screamed, “Why didn’t you call 911?!”

I looked at her. Angry now. I hated her. A moment ago I hated her for not being upset enough. Now I hated her for being upset.

“Because he asked me not to!” I yelled, inches from her face. “Because this was what he wanted! What did you expect, Mom?! He’s only been suicidal for years! What did you _think_ was going to happen?!”

She wailed then and crumpled to the ground. 

I didn’t feel one bit of sorry about it either. This was what she deserved, to me, in that moment. And I was suddenly enthralled that I got to witness it. Unlike people who actually committed suicide and never got to see how their family reacted. They never got to see everyone who treated them like shit regret what they’d done. I got the satisfaction of killing myself without actually committing to death and I couldn’t be happier about it.

While crying, she managed to pull her phone out and call 911. “My son’s jumped in the river!” she cried into the phone, “Please – please you have to hurry! He’s already been in there for – I – I don’t know! Too long!”

I didn’t stop her from telling the 911 operator that we were on the bridge, or giving her my name, or anything. It wouldn’t matter now. They’d come, the helicopter and the ambulances and the boats. All the shit that usually happened when someone fell or jumped in the river and got swept away. And when they never recovered my body, they would tell my parents there was nothing they could do.

…

They searched for my body for three weeks before finally giving up. A few days passed while my parents arranged my funeral. During that time, I didn’t have to pretend to be Elliot much. There was no precedent for how Elliot would act after I killed myself, so if I wanted to hide away in my bedroom, in the dark, not talking to anyone and sleeping all day – just like I would do, if say, Elliot ran away from home – my parents thought nothing of it. I was grieving. I missed my brother. Nothing could make me feel better. None of it was an act.

But then, while my parents were searching for the cemetery they wanted to “bury” me in, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it and regretted it as soon as I did. Mikasa yanked me into her arms and held me for so long my legs fell asleep.

“I’m so sorry, Elliot. I’m so sorry this happened.”

My eyes widened. It hadn’t occurred to me that I would have to be Elliot for _everyone_ that knew Elliot. Including his girlfriend. 

“Uh…” I said. I was overwhelmed by the smell of her hair. The feel of her waist in my arms. Her fingers curled in the collar of my shirt.

I’d dreamed of this for so long and now what? I could do whatever I wanted. I could whisk her away into my bedroom – the one Elliot and I had shared – and have my way with her if I wanted. After all, Elliot had had his way with her. He’d told me all about it, and I’d had to grit my teeth and bare it because confessing that I had a crush on his girlfriend was one of two things I’d never told him. I could tell him anything else but these two things, and had, no matter what it was. And I would have gladly told him about Mikasa if he hadn’t started dating her. But I knew if I told him I started to like her only after he started dating her, he would have broken up with her so that I didn’t hurt over it. And so that I would have had a chance. That was the kind of brother he was, and I was the kind of brother that held shit in as long as I could stand.

She looked up at me. She had dark grey eyes from her dad, and pale olive skin from her mom. Her lips were small and thin but looked so soft. I had always wanted to touch them. Not even kiss them, necessarily, but know what such things would feel like on my fingertips.

“Can we, uh,” I said. “Not talk about Jean right now?”

She looked surprised, but nodded right away. “Right. Sorry. Of course. We can do whatever you want.”

I wondered what Elliot would want to do if I actually killed myself. I had thought about this a lot before I “killed myself”. How he would react when I died had always been more important to me than how anyone else would have reacted. Especially because, I really didn’t know. I could guess about everyone else, but not him. We were close enough brothers that I asked him once. All he said was, “Don’t even talk about shit like that. You can’t kill yourself. How I’ll feel if you did that doesn’t matter because I’ll never be like that because you’ll never do it. Got it?”

I did what I hoped he’d do. “Actually, I kind of just want to be alone right now. Is that okay?”

She looked a little hurt. A little disappointed. I almost smiled, because it was just like her to want to baby someone who was in pain. She did shit like that with her brother, Eren, all the damn time. 

“Okay,” she said, and placed her hand on my cheek. “I’ll keep giving you space. You’ll call me later?”

I nodded. Elliot had left his phone behind because he didn’t want our parents to call him, which meant I had her number. 

She gave me a small smile and then she was leaning in, and placing those lips against my own before I even knew it. My eyes widened, but I closed them right away, savoring the feel of her lips pressed against my own. When she went to pull away, I couldn’t resist. I pulled her against me tighter, combed my fingers through her hair, and kissed her the way she deserved to be kissed. 

God, I wanted to have my way with her. 

But at the same time I was relieved when she blushed and walked back to her car. I couldn’t sleep with my brother’s girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. At least not…not until I couldn’t hold myself back anymore.

…

That night, I picked Elliot’s phone up to call Mikasa. I was worried about what we’d talk about, if I’d say something Elliot wouldn’t say, or accidentally say Elliot’s name instead of my own when talking about “my death”, but before I could, I realized Elliot had missed calls. Some were from Mikasa – I’d ignored all of her calls since “I jumped”, some from our parents – probably to inform me that they found a burial plot, but most were from someone named Marco. I thought I vaguely recognized the name, but couldn’t place where from. I wondered why he was calling my brother so much. Obviously, it was to ask about me, but why would someone I didn’t know want to ask about me so damn bad? 

I called the number. He instantly picked up. “Hello? Elliot? Is it true?”

I almost asked, “Who’s this?” and then realized Elliot would know. I said, “Yeah. Jean killed himself a few weeks ago. They haven’t found his body.”

A long silence passed on the other end of the phone. “Did he…leave a note or anything?”

“Uh, no? Why?” I slipped out of character to respond. Why would he care? 

“Just uh, just…wondering, I guess.” Another long silence passed between us. “How’re you doing with everything?”

“Been better.” 

He huffed out a humorless laugh. “Well, I guess I just called to…to…to check up on you. I’m sorry this happened, El. I’m gonna miss – I mean, I know you’ll miss him more, but I – never mind. Sorry I –”

I sat down on Elliot’s bed slowly, searching the ceiling for the face of the person on the other side of this phone. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who it was. I couldn’t fathom why he sounded so bent out of shape over my death. I guessed it was true that you never knew how many people cared about you and would miss you when you were gone. Even though I didn’t know the guy, I smiled, and felt relief flow through me. I actually let out a laugh on accident as my eyes teared up again. I mattered to someone other than my brother. I couldn’t believe it but it was true.

“Elliot?” he asked, obviously concerned.

“You don’t have to be sorry about missing him,” I said.

“Oh uh,” he said, and forced a laugh. “Yeah, you’re right. Um…look, I gotta know. And it’s not that I don’t trust you or anything but I’m just – Can’t even sleep right now I’m thinking about it so much. Did you ever tell him what I told you?”

And that was it. I waited for him to elaborate, to give me some hint as to what the hell he was talking about, but I had no idea. I wanted to tell him that I had to know too. And that I wouldn’t be able to sleep now because I would be thinking so much. 

At least I knew how to answer: If Elliot had ever told me, I would know what the fuck he was talking about so… “No, I didn’t.”

He paused again. “Oh. I – It’s funny. Until a second ago I thought I knew how I wanted you to answer that. Now, I guess…I guess I don’t know anything.”

I forced a laugh with him. An awkward silence passed. He was thinking so much and I was thinking so much.

“Oh, by the way,” he said out of nowhere. Probably just to say something. “Are you coming to practice tomorrow? Well, not _practice_ , but the uh freshmen tryouts. It’s totally okay if you don’t. You know, take your time. I was just wondering is all.”

Shit, I’d forgotten about football. My parents hadn’t said a thing about it. I guessed they didn’t expect Elliot to play so soon after I died. But sooner or later, it would be expected. Sooner or later I would have to start to “move on” and when people “moved on” they started doing things they stopped doing again.

“Sorry,” he said. “Shouldn’t have asked. Take care of yourself, El. I’ll – Call me if you need to talk.” He hung up.

I already knew I would be going to the tryouts tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t turn down an excuse to socialize with someone all summer. I couldn’t turn down the company of someone who knew I was me either. And…I didn’t know why. Or at least, I was telling myself I didn’t know why even though I did know why and had a sickening feeling growing in my stomach because of it. 
> 
> I wanted to spend more time with Marco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update once a week for the time being but I'm forewarning you guys, I probably won't be able to keep this up. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

When I got up in the morning, my parents were already sitting at the kitchen table. My dad held the newspaper, but didn’t appear to be reading it. My mom’s hands cupped her coffee mug. I was pretty sure she’d consumed nothing else since I died. 

“I’m going to freshman tryouts,” I said. 

It took them a moment. Their responses were delayed these days.

My mom said, without looking at me, “You sure, honey? No one would blame you if –”

I tried to say what I thought Elliot would say. “The team’s counting on me.”

My dad nodded his head, and set the paper down. “Call us when you get there. And if you make plans.”

“And if you need anything,” my mom added.

I felt like they were just saying what they thought they were supposed to say. Neither of them was actually there, in the kitchen with me, in that moment.

I almost felt guilty. But it was too late to do anything about it now.

I’d dug my own grave.

…

At the school, I wandered through the parking lot down the hill toward the fence surrounding the football field. All the football players were already there, leaning against the fence and sitting in the bleachers. Some smoking, some drinking coffee, some chatting. I walked up to them, wearing something Elliot would wear and walking the way Elliot would walk and waving how Elliot would wave. They all stared at me like I was an alien still. I couldn’t tell if it was because I wasn’t being Elliot Enough or because I _was_ being Elliot Enough and they were staring at me like that because they believed they were looking at someone who just lost his twin brother. 

None of them said anything about it as I approached. We made small-talk, talked about the previous games this year, and what a bummer it was that we were losing the senior players.

“Thank God you and Marco got held back a year though,” one of them said. I cocked my head and looked around the loose circle of guys. A few people nodded. One was Mikasa’s brother, who I was only just realizing was here. Actually, only just remembering was even on the team. Another was a guy taller than me with tons of freckles. And two other people I recognized from parties Elliot and I had gone to, but I couldn’t remember their names.

So, any of them but Eren could be Marco. Or maybe Marco didn’t nod his head. 

“I wasn’t held back,” I said. 

“Whatever you call it then,” Someone said.

“I was just a summer birthday. That’s why I ended up starting school when I was six,” said the guy with freckles. I turned to him. So he was Marco. “Elliot’s mom did it just because.”

“Because she thought we –” I was about to make the old joke. Because she thought we were stupid. Mom always got mad at me when I said that. She always responded that she wanted to ensure that we were ready, since both of us, apparently, despised the idea of going to school when we were five. 

I interrupted myself, not because I was suddenly overwhelmed with the use of “we” when there no longer was, but because Elliot had never made that joke. He agreed with me when I made it, but he never made it himself. I was worried that if I said it, someone here, somehow, would realize it was me.

That was not why _they_ believed I interrupted myself. They believed I said it for the former reason I mentioned.

“Hey, man,” one of them said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Glad it wasn’t you.”

And that…just fucking pissed me off. I swatted his hand off my shoulder.

“Why the _fuck_ would it be me?” I demanded. “It’s not like it just _happened_ to be Jean. Like a fucking car accident or something. It was on fucking purpose. And it wasn’t like _I_ was the unwanted second baby my parents ended up with. It wasn’t like _I_ was the one everyone ignored like the plague in school. It wasn’t like _I_ was the one famous for attempting to kill myself on the night of the homecoming game last year.”

He backed away from me and everyone stared at me wide-eyed except Marco and Eren. I guessed that Eren would support whatever Elliot said, given that Elliot was his sister’s boyfriend. And Marco, I wasn’t sure why. Apparently, because he gave a shit about me in some way for some reason I couldn’t fathom.

“Hey, sorry. God, sorry. Didn’t – didn’t mean it like that,” the guy said. He seemed genuinely sorry, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t want to hear how glad people were that I was the one that died. 

I tried to cool off. Elliot would cool off. Or at least, he’d say something cold. At least he wouldn’t apologize any sooner than I would to this guy. “Whatever. I’m _not_ glad it was my brother, got it?”

They all nodded.

And just then, a stream of gawky freshmen headed toward the football field like the bigshots they no doubt thought they were. Some of them had the good sense to look nervous. This team, in the finals four years running now, wouldn’t accept anyone lightly.

Not far behind them the coach came marching down the hill with a clipboard and a whistle around his head, or on his shoulders, or however you would describe a necklace on a man so buff that he literally didn’t have a neck. I only knew him as Coach. I didn’t know what Coach’s name was. I hoped that wouldn’t come up.

He walked straight to me. He gave the rest of the team a look that somehow clearly meant they should leave and they did.

He too, placed his enormous hand on my shoulder. Maybe this was all football players knew to do in a situation like this. He went on about how brave it was for me to show up today and how much it would mean not only to the current team but next year’s team that I was one of the people determining the next selection of recruits for the Titans. I nodded and everything and he asked me how I was doing and I just kept nodding and finally he said what everyone was saying. 

“If you need to talk, let me know,” he said and walked away, clearly relieved that it was over with.

I went to sit on the benches out of bounds with the rest of the team.

…

One after another, freshmen walked to the center of the field, performed a few football things that they would need to do in order to get the position of this or that football player graduating this year. 

I had to bullshit a lot of it. I nodded when the other team members did and shook my head when they did. When they made comments I agreed with them. I didn’t contribute much, even though I was certain Elliot would, but hopefully they would chalk that up to Mourning again. As long as I was in Mourning, I could be out of character. 

When the last clumsy and overly-confident teenage boy sauntered back up the hill we gave Coach our recommendations and he gave us his and reminded us that, ultimately, it was up to him and a couple other people that I didn’t care about or whatever.

Then we left. We walked together up the hill and began to disperse in the parking lot. Most of us paired off, in twos or threes. But I walked alone toward Elliot’s car parked way the hell out there. 

A minute passed and then a faster set of footsteps accompanied my own.

“Jean!” 

I swung my head around. Then I cursed. God damn it. 

“I knew it!’ Marco said.

He stood, silhouetted by the sun. He seemed to tower over me though he must only be an inch or so taller. He placed his hands on his hips and stared long and hard at me.

“Hey,” I said, just like Elliot would, “That’s really fucked up to yell my brother’s name like –”

“Cut it out,” he said. “I know you’re Jean.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. And I can prove it.”

“Yeah? How?” 

He placed his finger on one of my eyebrows, flicking the longer hairs on top of my head out of the way of my forehead.

“Elliot started plucking his eyebrows a few weeks back,” Marco said. “I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t told me about it. And it may be a subtle difference, but I can tell you don’t pluck yours. Besides, Elliott would have sat next to me on the bench.”

I sighed. Then I touched my eyebrows, obviously, not plucked at all. Was he right? How had I not noticed Elliot plucking his eyebrows? _Why_ was Elliot plucking his eyebrows?

“Why the fuck would he tell you something like that?” I asked, calling it quits. I didn’t have the energy for this right now, anyway. I still wanted to know who he was.

“So you _are_ Jean, right?” he asked.

“I thought you _knew_ I was Jean,” I spit.

He huffed out a laugh and looked away. Then his eyes widened. “Wait, does this mean – ? Is Elliot – Is he – ?”

For one whole second I debated whether to tell him that Elliot had died or the truth. But, what was the point of lying about this? He’d already figured the important thing out. 

“He’s fine,” I said. “He ran away. I told my parents I was him because they like Elliot more. And I told them I had killed myself so they wouldn’t go looking for Elliot. Also, it’s none of your fucking business.”

He scowled at me. “It’s my fucking business when my best friend’s dead twin shows up and I have no idea if he killed himself or up and disappeared.”

My features softened. “He’s your best friend?”

“He was,” he said, “Until he ran away without even telling me why.”

“Shut up,” I said.

He cocked his head at me. 

“Elliot – It’s not like I know why he had to leave either. And if it’s something my brother can’t tell me, then it’s something he can’t tell anyone.”

Marco seemed to think about that. “I didn’t mean…I know you were his best friend. So I guess you’re right.”

My mouth was opening back up to speak when he said that, and now it was stuck in place. 

“I’m really glad it wasn’t you,” he said.

I almost rolled my eyes. “Wasn’t me what?”

“That ran away.”

Then I blushed. “Why?”

He looked away from me and let out a long breath. “If Elliot’s going to be gone for a while, and you have to be him, you’re gonna have to learn how to kick.”

I swallowed. “I know.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ve never been a kicker. But I bet I can get you in decent shape by the fall.”

“You’re gonna teach me? But – When?”

“All summer. Think you can handle it?” 

I nodded, even though I did _not_ think I could handle it. But I – 

I couldn’t turn down an excuse to socialize with someone all summer. I couldn’t turn down the company of someone who knew I was _me_ either. And…I didn’t know why. Or at least, I was telling myself I didn’t know why even though I did know why and had a sickening feeling growing in my stomach because of it. 

I wanted to spend more time with Marco. 

I remembered seeing him now. Occasionally spending the night at our house. Taking my bed while I slept on the couch so that Elliot and he could play video games on the Ps3 all night. Here and there, coming over with take-out so that Elliot could be excused from the dinner table. Some mornings, he would come over and toss the football around with Elliot in the back yard. He’d chase after the ball Elliot had just kicked, trying to catch it before it hit the ground. All the while, I saw him as a football player proxy whom I would pay absolutely no attention to other than to not walk directly into him. 

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll call you, okay? Pick up this time.”

“I will,” I said, as he jogged off toward his car.

I forgot to ask him about the thing that Elliot didn’t tell me Marco told Elliot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I realize now that it was up to me to change my life, and I would, but it would take a long time. Just like it would take Elliot a long time to get back to me, to tell me what went down after he left. We’re good now, as good as ever, I promise. But I have to get back to you on that because that’s not what part of the story I’m at. All I’m trying to say is, don’t be mad at Elliot, okay? Don’t be mad like I was.

It was Sunday, the day of my funeral. Yesterday afternoon, after going to the tryouts and meeting Marco, my parents had a wake for me at the funeral home. I didn’t go. They thought it was unusual that I wouldn’t go, and said so, and so I said, “You think Jean would give a damn if I went to his wake?” 

That shut them up. I don’t know if it shut them up because they realized I was right, I, Jean, would not give a shit if Elliot went to my wake, or if they just decided it wasn’t worth arguing. 

But I couldn’t get out of the funeral. Partly because, I didn’t want them to get any more suspicious about the strange way Elliot had gone about his grieving process, and partly because my parents asked me to eulogize him. I refused over and over, but my dad argued that I was the only one who could – and I held back my retort that the reason Elliot was the only one that could eulogize me was because no one else bothered to know me very well, including them, and my mom explained that she would just be sobbing the whole time and therefore wouldn’t be able to do my eulogy justice.

So here I was, in a suit, sitting in the first row, left side, directly next to the aisle and closest to the podium. A preacher had been going on and on about how I was in a better place now, because certainly God was merciful and would have understood and forgiven my sinful decision to take my own life and all that. I kept thinking that my parents could have found, literally, anybody else to do this and they would have done a better job. I kept hoping that he’d drop dead at my funeral. He looked old enough to. Then suddenly, he was asking me to come up to the podium now if I would still like to speak, and I stood up, even though I wouldn’t still like to speak.

At the podium, I held nothing, but stared at it as if I had something to read off anyway. I didn’t want to look out at the crowd of my relatives and try to determine how sad any of them were that I was gone, or how many of them were glancing at their watches and phones, ready to peel out of here the second I was done. 

I started, “Jean was...my twin brother. And for those of you who don’t have a twin, all I can say is that it’s a lot like being born with your best friend.”

Elliot had described it to me that way once. He said he felt sorry for everybody else who had to go about living their lives, waiting to meet their best friend. Maybe going through half a dozen best friends in their lifetime. He talked about it the way most people talked about finding the love of their life, but I don’t think he ever took being in love too seriously. No doubt he loved Mikasa in some way, but I couldn’t picture him settling down with her. Settling with her or anybody, for that matter. He was too much the type of guy that would wake up and decide to live a different life for a while. 

“I can’t remember many times in my life that Jean wasn’t there with me. Good or bad, he was always there. And that always made the good better, and the bad not as bad as it would have been.” Those were my words. That was how I’d always felt. I’d always thought _but what would I have done without Elliot?_ and Thank God I have Elliot.

“Now, I guess…” I continued, and my eyes teared slightly. I missed him so much. And it hadn’t even been a month yet. “I’ll know what it’s like for everyone else. Nothing will be as good as it would have been. And everything that’s bad, will be worse.”

I wiped my eyes then, and, to catch my breath and gather my thoughts, I placed my palms on the edges of the podium and looked out at the crowd. Mikasa was there, her hair pulled back in a bun, and face solemn. Eren was there, wearing a severe expression, teal eyes crystalline with anger, more like he was going off to war than at a funeral. And there, was Marco, directly beside him. The worst part about him being there was that I knew he knew, and so the pitiful expression he wore right now was not for Elliot because he lost me, but for me because I lost Elliot. 

And again, I was suddenly angry. I was suddenly so pissed off. Because he was all I had in this whole room, packed with people who looked bored or embarrassed for me or annoyed, a baby crying, a kid playing with a slinky in the aisle, and a man leaving for his third smoke break, and all I had was Marco, a complete fucking stranger to me. He was the only person in this whole room looking at me right now, taking in the words I said, and sharing the pain of missing my brother with me. There were other students here. Most of the football team. Some of their girlfriends. A couple of Elliot’s ex-girlfriends. One of my teachers. I didn’t know hardly any of their names. Couldn’t remember a time that we’d talked. Couldn’t remember a single moment that we shared together, in some way, that wasn’t directly through Elliot. 

This was why I tried to kill myself, I remembered then in full, all-encompassing horror. Without Elliot, I was nobody to everybody. I was like a vestigial organ. A tumor. An accident. I mean, how fucked up is it that my parents got pregnant once on purpose but wouldn’t have ever had a second child on purpose? 

I asked them about it when I was real small. I asked them why I didn’t have any younger siblings, why they just had me and Elliot.

And my mom said, “Because we wanted one, perfect child.”

Which, naturally, had confused me.

“But we got two, perfect children,” my dad added, over a minute later.

“Right,” my mom added, “We just got so lucky…”

But that knowledge always clung to me. No one ever had twins on purpose. Which meant, any time a pregnancy was planned that resulted in twins, one of the children had been wanted, and one of them had not been.

I knew I was the one that had not been. 

Here I was, at my own funeral, and I didn’t even get to be dead. Life was so unfair, sometimes.

“For the record,” I spit, into the mic then. “He wouldn’t have wanted any of you people here. Any of you. The only damn person he would have wanted here was _me_ , because I’m the only person that ever gave a damn about him. And you can sit here, and act like you knew Jean, like you gave one shit about him, but _I’m_ the only one in this room that’s lost anybody – anybody he cares about!” 

I sobbed, and my parents stood up but I glared at them. “And you guys! What the fuck was up with that sermon, anyway? About how God probably _forgave_ Jean for killing himself? Are you shitting me? What about you? Do you think God’s forgiven _you_ for neglecting him? For putting me first all these years?! For all your obvious fucking favoritism? Or is it only ever the person that – that didn’t once in his life feel loved, or accepted, or known by anybody, who felt like he had nothing to live for and no one to live his life with, all except for his one brother –who – who had the exact life he’d always dreamed of – that, that has to be forgiven for his sinful decisions?”

My dad placed his arm on my shoulder to usher me out of the funeral home. But I shrugged him off and stepped away.

I looked him in the eyes, then my mom. “Jean was sick. He was really fucking sick. And the thing is, you guys just dropped him off at therapy, dropped him off at the doctors, packed him with pills and made him someone else’s problem when all you needed to be was there for him! To give a shit about him too!”

My mom had been sobbing this whole time but now she was practically choking. Someone in the seat behind her had wrapped their arms around her, trying to console her but my mom was heaving. “We – we tried to – El –Elliot!”

“You shouldn’t have had to try! Why – Why was Jean so hard to love? What did he – he ever do?”

My dad placed his hand firmly on my shoulder and started pulling me toward the door. “What has gotten into you, Elliot? You’re not being yourself. You’d never –”

I snorted and he stared at me like I’d just escaped from prison and was on the loose. Suddenly, Marco stood up and wormed his way in between me and my dad. He glanced around the room, at all the people who’d swiveled in their seats, some infuriated, some simply entertained by the funeral’s exciting twist, before looking at my dad again.

“Sorry, Mr. Kirstein. Elliot’s just – just taking this really hard. He – He can’t be himself right now is all,” Marco said.

I snorted again. My dad didn’t know the half of it.

“But, um – if you want, I’ll talk to him outside?”

My dad’s shoulders visibly relaxed and he pulled his hand away from me. “Thank you, Marco. See if you can’t talk some sense into him.”

A shiver ran down my spine. They wouldn’t have _ever_ said something like that to Elliot before today. I wondered, now that I was “dead” would Elliot – me, become the new son to resent? 

Marco looked at me. “Come on. Let’s get some air, El.”

I nodded. My whole body was trembling. 

Outside, I sank to the ground and pressed my back into the brick wall of the funeral home. I placed both my elbows on my knees and covered my face with my hands. Marco sat beside me and let me just breathe for a long time.

“You nearly blew your cover there, Jean,” he whispered.

“I know,” I said. 

“But,” he said.

I faced him.

“But,” he said again, and shrugged, “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Elliot would have done.”

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Elliot never – never stood up to my parents. Not even – even when he _knew_ they treated me differently, he wouldn’t –”

Marco shook his head. “Maybe he never did before you died, but…I don’t think your parents would have ever heard the end of it if you actually killed yourself. He would have never forgiven them. You know, there’s a reason he left, Jean. And, we don’t know what it is. But we know he’s always wanted to go, right?”

I nodded. Though I hadn’t known that he knew that.

“There’s only a few people he’s always had in his life. You, and your parents. And he definitely didn’t leave because of you.”

“That doesn’t make sense. They never bothered Elliot much. All that tells me is: _I_ should have been the one to leave.”

Marco huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. But, I just think…there’s more to the story than that.”

That made me feel better, but I didn’t know why. It just did. Maybe because it reaffirmed my trust in my brother. Throughout the funeral, I was mad at him for leaving me. Mad at him for never sticking up for me. Never changing my life for me.

I realize now that it was up to me to change my life, and I would, but it would take a long time. Just like it would take Elliot a long time to get back to me, to tell me what went down after he left. We’re good now, as good as ever, I promise. But I have to get back to you on that because that’s not what part of the story I’m at. All I’m trying to say is, don’t be mad at Elliot, okay? Don’t be mad like I was. 

Just then, Mikasa walked out of the funeral home and spotted Marco and I crouched on the ground. 

“Marco, do you think I –”

“Yeah,” Marco said, and stood up right away. He rubbed the back of his neck. He wore a surprised look, like something had only just occurred to him, but I couldn’t ask him about it in front of her. “I’ll go see if…The Kirsteins have calmed down.”

“Thanks, Marco,” I said, hoping he realized I was saying thank you for more than what he’d just said he’d do.

After Marco walked back inside, Mikasa sat down beside me. She wore a simple black dress that reached her knees, and black flats. She had pearl earrings in. I wondered how often Elliot had noticed what earrings she wore. How often he caught himself staring at the shape of her ear in the shade from the sun. 

She rested her head on my shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”

I like that she skipped to “are you going to be” and not “are you”. She automatically understood that I wasn’t okay right now, and didn’t expect me to be. She just wanted me to be okay at some point.

“Yeah,” I said, because I thought Elliot would be. As far as myself, who knew?

“What would make it okay?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure. Nothing could undo the way my parents had favored Elliot for years. Nothing could undo my lie. I couldn’t stop being depressed, or suicidal, nor could I continue to take my anti-depressants and go to my therapist as Elliot. And I couldn’t even _talk_ to Elliot about it. Never before had I reached such a low as this. 

Mikasa must have realized I didn’t have an answer. “Want me to sleepover?”

I perked my head up. My parents let her sleep over here and there. Never on school nights, and never when my parents wouldn’t be home at the same time. She and Elliot weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed. But since I slept on the couch, my parents never caught that Mikasa slipped out of my twin bed into Elliot’s twin bed on the other side of the room with him. Sometimes, after she left the next morning, I’d slip into my bed and smell her shampoo on my sheets from the first few minutes of the night she’d laid down in my bed, when my parents might open the door and check in on them. 

“Yeah,” I said, “I really do.”

…

After my eulogy, those who still cared to stay, who hadn’t felt too insulted by what I’d said, made a funeral procession out to my gave. My parents hadn’t spent money on a casket. I was both relieved and bitter about it. I was relieved because my parents really didn’t have the money for a casket, let alone an empty one. And I was bitter because they were cutting corners when their son just died. In any case, the two feelings nulled each other.

I stared at my headstone while everybody else bowed their heads and prayed silently.

 _Jean Nolan Kirstein_  
_Beloved Son and Brother_  
_April 7th 2000 – April 7th 2018_

They’d even put the exact dates on there, so that everyone would know that I died on my eighteenth birthday. My middle name was my mom’s dad’s name. Elliot’s middle name was my dad’s name.

My mom dropped a rose, then my dad did, and then I did. No one else held roses.

On the way home, my parents were silent in the car. They were silent when we got home too. I opened my mouth to apologize – not because I was sorry, or because Elliot would have been, but because they apparently thought Elliot wouldn’t have done that. And therefore, they thought Elliot would probably apologize. At least I guessed that.

“Mom, Dad, I –”

“It’s okay, Son,” my dad said, as he sunk into the couch and undid his tie.

My mom sat beside him. She kicked off her black heels. “It’s not your fault.”

I hated how they did this. Just took turns saying things just to try to make it better instead of having a real conversation.

“Well, I’m sorry just the same. I didn’t mean to blow up like that.”

“We know you didn’t,” my mom said, like she was trying to convince herself.

“We know you wouldn’t ever do that normally,” my dad said, “But…losing Jean. Well, none of us are in our right minds right now.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly.”

I walked into my room, shut the door, turned off the lights, closed the curtains, and crawled into Elliot’s bed. Then I pressed my face into his pillow and screamed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ll never know why I couldn’t remember him...Likely, he asked me questions and I grunted in response and he had taken that as me paying attention to what he was saying. But I never did. Not just with him, but with every football player that walked through the doors. I just didn’t want to acknowledge that side of my brother’s life. Now I’m going to have to wonder forever how different everything could have been if I had just listened to people when they spoke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late guys, thanks for reading!

Mikasa showed up around seven, right after an extremely long and silent dinner with my family. She’d changed into jeans and a hoodie. Her hair was down. She still wore the pearl earrings. 

“We’ll be in my room,” I said to my parents, now sitting in the living room watching the evening news.

“Behave,” my dad said, without even turning his head to look at us. I was pretty sure my parents stopped caring whether or not Elliot and Mikasa were having sex a few months ago. And now that he would be eighteen _and_ I was supposedly dead, they _really_ couldn’t care less. 

Once in my room, I wasn’t sure how to act. I never saw what my brother was like behind closed doors with his girlfriend, obviously. And though I knew how he was with her around others, he was pretty respectful, both to her and anyone else around them. No PDA, type of thing, which I thought Mikasa appreciated. And I, certainly, had appreciated. 

But I knew they’d had sex, so, it couldn’t always be like that. 

“So…” I said. Would my brother even say that? I didn’t think so. 

“Elliot,” Mikasa said, and stepped toward me. “Are you mad at me?”

“What?” I asked. “No. Way no.” That was something Elliot said. _Way_ no.

“You haven’t hardly touched me since…”

“Oh,” I said. 

“Since that kiss,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Suddenly, I had the urge to do the same thing and did. I wanted to thread my fingers through her hair. 

“It’s hard to,” I said. 

“I don’t want you to punish yourself for Jean’s death,” she said. “You still deserve to be happy.”

I swallowed. This was _so_ like her. Putting everyone in her life first. Constantly being concerned about them. Almost babying me with attentiveness. 

“I know,” I said, so she’d stop worrying. I placed my hands on her waist and pulled her in. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

She smiled then, and we were kissing. We kissed standing up, and kissed laying down, and kissed under the covers. She slid her hands all over me and I thanked God that against all logic my build, my muscular structure, was nearly identical to Elliot’s. By the way she was touching me right now, it would have to be. I was thankful I had no distinguishing scars too. What if I had attempted suicide by cutting my wrists? This would have never been possible.

I tried to touch her the way she touched me, like I already knew her body. Like it wasn’t all new to me – in every way. Not only had I never touched her body, I’d never touched _anyone’s_ body. My heart was racing and I fought off shaking hands. I couldn’t make myself touch any of the riskier areas. I didn’t get my hands under her bra or down her jeans. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just couldn’t. She thought I was Elliot. She wouldn’t be touching me if she knew. And how creepy would it be if I took advantage of that? But I couldn’t stop kissing her. I’d rather kiss her than breathe.

Finally, she pried her mouth from mine. “You’re so different.”

I went rigid. “I am? How?”

“Your kissing,” she said, “It’s like you mean it more, or something.”

“Is that bad?” 

She shook her head, smiling. “But you don’t want to have sex.”

It wasn’t a question. My stomach tightened and I winced. “No, I don’t.”

She nodded and tucked her head under my chin. Then she passed me the remote from under Elliot’s pillow. I’d been looking for that. 

As I flipped through the channels, she fell asleep on my chest. 

...

The weekend after my funeral, Marco woke me up at about eight in the morning. I glared at my ringing cellphone and his name lit up on the screen. Then I remembered that this was when Elliot woke up. This was normally when Elliot would answer the phone as quickly as he could, whisper to whoever was on the line to hang on, and step out of the room, trying not to wake me up, because I would stay in bed until noon. 

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m on my way over.”

I blinked several times. “You’re what?”

“Coming over.”

“I know, but…”

He laughed. “You have to start practicing.”

“I know, _but_ …”

“And your parents will think it’s weird if you’re not up.”

I sighed. 

“Put on something Elliot would wear to practice. I’ll be out in the backyard.”

He hung up. I got dressed. Then I dragged myself out into the hall toward the kitchen. My parents looked up.

“I’m going to…uh,” I said, drawing a blank. I pointed toward the backyard. “Practice football with Marco.”

My mom squinted at me. “Are you feeling okay?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Perfect.”

“Is he pressuring you to –” she stared.

“You don’t have to practice, Son. You know, your mom and I’ve been thinking. You don’t even have to play next fall if you don’t want,” my dad said.

And it suddenly hit me what Elliot would do if I killed myself.

He’d act like it never even happened.

“What are you talking about?” I said. And even though the last thing I wanted to do next year was play football, I said, “Of course I have to play.”

And I walked out of the room, shaking my head like my parents were crazy to think otherwise. 

I didn’t let myself think about how it felt to know my brother would act like nothing happened. 

…

Outside, Marco leaned against the siding of my garage. He wore sweatpants and a jersey for a real NFL team, that was all I knew. Whoever was green and yellow. The sun shone down on his ruffled black undercut, his freckled cheekbones and his thick crossed arms over his wide chest, and I just…

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, under my breath.

“What was that?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just…looking at you. You look…like you play football. And…you know, I don’t look like I play football.”

He arched an eyebrow, clearly amused with my manly insecurities. I wore Elliot’s sweatpants and Elliot’s hoodie, and somehow, they felt too big. Like I couldn’t fill them up. 

“Jean, you look exactly like Elliot. Did you ever look at Elliot and think he didn’t look like he played football?”

I shook my head. “No, but. He did look like that.”

Marco chuckled and walked toward me. “Where’s your ball?”

I deadpanned at him. “How would I know?”

He raised his eyebrows. 

“Oh, wait. Elliot’s car. My car. Hang on,” I said, and went to turn around. Marco slapped a hand down on my shoulder and pulled me back by my hood.

“Dare I ask,” he said, dramatically, “how much you know about football?”

I turned to slowly face him. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

“If I said, say, that we were first and ten…Would you know what that meant?”

“No,” I said, “Way no.”

He laughed at that. “Okay. Forget practice. We’re going to my place.”

“We are?” I said, “Why?”

“So that your parents won’t overhear me teach Elliot how to play a game he’s been play for years.”

I smiled and followed Marco up between my house and the neighbor’s toward the street where his car was parked. 

…

His car was so clean I hesitated to sit in it. It was like, too nice of a car for someone our age to own. You might have guessed, I don’t know things about cars either. But believe me, this car was shiny and had leather seats. 

And the guy followed practically every damn rule too. Right down to speed limits and waiting three seconds at stop signs. It was both annoying and endearing, but I didn’t say so. 

We’d been mostly silent, and it was comfortable too, so it surprised me when he spoke up. And not even something he just thought of either. It felt like he’d been trying to bring it up. Like he’d been thinking about it the whole car ride. 

“What’s it like suddenly being Mikasa’s boyfriend?” he asked.

I inhaled deeply, and puffed it all out in one breath. I didn’t know how to answer that. “It’s different.”

“Would Elliot mind?” he asked, turning his head toward me, but keeping the road in his periphery. We slowed for a yellow light we could have run.

“Don’t know. Don’t think so. I mean, he left her here and everything.”

Marco nodded like he was deep in thought. “Do _you_ mind?”

I met his eye on this one. “To be honest…kind of. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with her. Not even – you know, not even close to anything wrong with her. She’s uh – She’s actually kind of a perfect girlfriend to have.”

Marco stared at the road long and hard. “But?”

“It’s just weird, you know, that she thinks I’m Elliot. I feel like a creep. And if I had thought about it before I lied, I probably wouldn’t have lied.”

“So, uh,” he started, and rubbed the back of his neck before promptly placing his hand back on the steering wheel. “You like her? I mean, you like…girls?”

I eyed Marco for a second. At a stoplight, he stared at me with sincere eyes and an expression that…how do I say it? Was determined not to be ashamed, but prepared to _be_ shamed. He didn’t notice when the light turned green, and I was grateful no one was behind us.

“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t?”

He looked away then. “No. That’s…not a problem, is it?”

I smiled and felt a strange sense of relief. “Did my brother know?”

“Yes,” he said. 

“And it wasn’t a problem for him?” I asked.

“No. Is it for _you_?” 

I shook my head. “Not at all dude. I’m just…just surprised Elliot was cool with it.”

And this surprised Marco. “You guys never talked about it? Like…gay rights weren’t ever brought up in your house or anything?”

“Oh, they’ve been brought up,” I spit. “By my parents. They’re…less than supportive of the cause. But Elliot never…I could never tell what he thought. And I didn’t want to argue with him about it.”

“Because…you _did_ support…uh, the cause?”

Marco finally began to move now that the light was green the second time. I stared ahead then. “You could say that.”

Marco looked deep in thought, and I relaxed a bit. It felt nice to be confided in like that. And it was nice to finally know what my brother would have thought if I ever told him that second thing that I could never tell him besides the first thing that I had a crush on his girlfriend, Mikasa.

That I liked guys. Too.

It was nice to know I wasn’t the only guy that liked guys in this town. I smiled the rest of the drive to Marco’s. 

…

Marco’s house had a gate. He had to type in a password to get through the gate. Then there was a road to his four-door garage, in which, there were to convertibles and a boat. I blinked. I squinted. 

“Marco…”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, like it exasperated him to admit he was loaded. 

I snorted. “Do you have your own football field?” 

He smiled. “I wish. Instead, we have a pool and my sister’s horses.”

I didn’t even know which word in that sentence to focus on. “Your sister?”

He slid into the one free parking spot in the garage and put it in park. “My twin sister. Her name is Ymir.”

“You have a twin?!” 

He laughed and I thought he even blushed. “I can’t believe Elliot never told you.”

“He never told me anything! I didn’t even recognize your name on my phone when you called – I almost asked you who you were.”

Here, I expected him to laugh. He did not. “You didn’t know me?”

I looked at him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. 

I’m bad with shit like that. Still am to this day. Looking back, I realize he was a little hurt. 

I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like we –”

“I’ve been to your house. I’ve eaten dinner with your family. We’ve _talked_ to each other before.”

I gaped at him. Now I was the one blushing. At my funeral I couldn’t remember having even one exchange of small talk with most the people there – including Marco. 

I’ll never know why I couldn’t remember him. I honestly believe that when we spoke, I was probably just on autopilot. I doubt I even looked up from my plate, or controller, or sketchpad, or whatever it was when we talked. Likely, he asked me questions and I grunted in response and he had taken that as me paying attention to what he was saying. But I never did. Not just with him, but with every football player that walked through the doors. I just didn’t want to acknowledge that side of my brother’s life. Now I’m going to have to wonder forever how different everything could have been if I had just listened to people when they spoke up. 

I knew I should apologize. But, it’s just not something I’m good at. The thing is, I’m never sorry. But I was sorry then. 

Marco sighed, and said, “Let’s go inside.”

The inside was just as glamorous as the outside. His kitchen had a pantry the size of a bathroom and a TV the size of a wall and a fireplace the size of a short skyscraper. I found myself tilting my head back to stare at the chandelier and the skylight and the crown molding and all that shit. I felt like if I touched one thing in the house, it would shatter to the ground.

“So, are your parents home?” I asked. 

“No. They live in New York.”

I spun around and faced him as he sank into the leather couch and pressed the “on” button on three different remotes to turn the TV on. 

“They _what_?” 

“They live in New York. My mom’s an architect.”

I sat down beside him on the couch. “So, why are you here?”

“Well, my mom and dad lived _here_ until my mom decided she wanted to be an architect. My sister and I were fourteen at the time, and didn’t want to move. So my parents left us. The house is paid off. They pay any other bills from there. And if anything goes wrong, we have a housekeeper and grandparents that live down the block.”

He sounded angry while he said it, and it didn’t suit him at all. I liked that he was a calm person. A gentle person. I liked that his instinct was to make others feel better, defuse situations like during my funeral, and be there for others. He reminded me of Mikasa in that way. 

He had more in common with her, I was starting to notice. They both had dark hair. They were both athletic, since Mikasa was in volley ball, basketball and lacrosse. They both had olive skin and long eye lashes. Both of them seemed to always have their shit together, and were always ready for me to have lost mine.

“So you live with your sister.”

He shook his head. On the TV screen, he was scrolling through his Direct TV list. “Ymir lives with her girlfriend.”

It was like, every sentence he said confused me.

“Her name’s Ymir?”

He laughed at this, as he selected something recorded to play. He paused it right away though. “She swears it was a misprint, and my parents just never bothered to change it.” 

“And she has a girlfriend?”

“Yup. We’re both gay.”

“Well, damn. What are the odds?”

“No idea.”

“You parents okay with it?”

“My dad doesn’t like it. But he deals with it. My mom doesn’t seem to mind since she’ll still end up with a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. She still gets to see me in a tux and – Well, not _Ymir_ in a dress but she’ll probably help Christa find one. Think she would have been more pissed off if just one of us was gay.”

I laughed and so did he, all the while shaking his head.

“Wish my parents were like that,” I blurted out, without even thinking, like a complete dumbass.

“Why?” He’d turned to look at me then, and I thought I might literally start to sweat. I mean, why _would_ a straight guy care if his parents were cool with him being gay?

“Just, you know…so they wouldn’t be such assholes,” I said, fumbling for an excuse.

“Well,” Marco said, raising his eyebrows. “My parents shouldn’t be their role models then.”

Marco fast-forwarded to the beginning of the game and then through the anthem until the players were on the field.

“See that formation?” Then he stood up and walked over to the TV screen. He pointed at the screen. “Offense, defense.”

His hand moved like the weather man’s did over a forecast.

“Right here, is the quarterback. The guy who throws the ball. That’s me.”

“Okay…” I said, “But I’m not out yet.”

“No, you only come out at certain times.”

“To kick field goals.”

“And to hand the ball over when your turn on offense is up.”

I clapped my hands together. “Great. Let’s go practice.”

Marco laughed into his hand. “You think that’s it?”

“Well, isn’t it? I need to know when I gotta go on the field and how to kick. Now I know when I gotta go on the field. So let’s start kicking.”

Marco shook his head. “Jean. Elliot knew everything about football. He knew every team and every play and every flag and –”

“So?”

“ _So_ Elliot will be expected to talk like he knows what he’s talking about. I’m not worried about you learning to kick nearly as much as I’m worried about what you’ll say on the sidelines.”

I deadpanned at him and he smiled, guiltily rubbing the back of his neck.

I sighed. “Fine, I guess. What are the other positions?”

So Marco took me through a crash course of football. I had all these football words in my head now, like quarterback, retriever, interception, 2nd down and linebacker. They were floating around up there but I couldn’t make sense of them. After about an hour Marco sat down beside me. 

“You getting it?” 

“Sure,” I said.

He smiled like he was really proud of himself for confusing the shit out of me.

“Can we, like, do _anything_ else now?”

He leaned back. Ran his fingers through his hair and crossed his arm under his head, sprawling out across the couch. He looked over at me and I tried not to look at him. 

“Well, we could workout.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What? That’s what football players do. And you need to get in shape for fall.” He pinched my bicep and I held in a squeak. I swatted him away.

“I can’t kick with my arms.”

He was really grinning now. He was always so damn happy over nothing. 

“Okay. But you do need to get in shape. You might not have to be in all that much shape for the games but everyone has to go to practice.”

I arched an eyebrow. The last thing I wanted to think about in the world was being outside, doing pushups or sprints or whatever in the grass and dirt, surrounded by sweaty guys and Coach yelling at me. 

I didn’t even want to be outside now. It was like, a hundred degrees out now that it was noon and my sweats were already sticking to my legs a little bit. I felt stupid for wearing this. I felt kind of gross. And kind of self-conscious about it in front of Marco. Or maybe I only felt gross and self-conscious because he was so –

Okay, I’ll just fucking say it. He was so hot. Like, he was exactly my type. And I didn’t even really notice it until this morning, or maybe…I’d noticed it in the parking lot at my school, but I successfully ignored it until this morning. And now, it was just really inconvenient for me. Because I wanted to be his friend. I wanted to be his friend because he was Elliot’s best friend, and because now that I was Elliot, he still had to be my best friend. But also because he knew I was Jean and didn’t seem to mind that I was and I didn’t know anyone else like that in my life. I didn’t know anyone who wouldn’t rather be around Elliot. So, finding him attractive, was just not an option. 

Marco nudged me out of my trance. “We could go swimming.”

I swallowed and stared at him. What the fuck had I gotten myself into? And what was I going to do about it?

I’ll tell you what. Nothing, that’s what. 

“Well, shit. If you want to.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And like, now I know that that’s fucked up. And believe me, I wish I’d just been like _hell_ yeah let’s _do_ this, but naturally, I had to fuck things up first. Not as bad as that time I told my mom I jumped in the river, but, still pretty damn bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little late guys! I had a super busy weekend. Thank you for being patient and reading!

His pool was indoors, surrounded by windows. I felt like his neighbors could see me as I dropped my towel. Marco had lent me a pair of his swim trunks, an older pair. These no longer quite fit him, so they fit me. He wore black trunks and had brown, glowing skin in the sun and I couldn’t stand watching him dive in, like he knew the water was warm and in any case he could handle cold just fine. 

When he surfaced, he flicked his hair around like a dog, then spun around to greet me, grinning. 

“You’re coming in, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, walking around the pool to the shallow end with the staircase. “Just not gonna show off while I do it.”

He laughed before sinking underneath gain. 

The water was warm. My shorts ballooned up as I walked in. I was grateful he was still under water. I backstroked to the deep end and sat on a rung on the little latter. He surfaced again, and kept his head above water by kicking. The constant motion didn’t strain him at all. 

“Do you like swimming?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just not with other people.”

He arched an eyebrow at me and treaded over to the lip of the pool. He rested his elbow on the edge and gazed at me, as comfortably as he might lounge on a couch. 

“I swim often, but it’s not the same as swimming with other people.”

“Did Elliot ever come over and swim?” I asked.

Marco nodded. “All the time. Though, I don’t know why. It was the one time he seemed sort of…self-conscious? Isn’t that weird?”

“I can’t picture Elliot self-conscious about anything.” I shivered. The water was warming but I wasn’t all the way submerged. Goosebumps pricked along my arms and neck. I couldn’t stop staring at Marco’s collarbones. His freckles faded just below his shoulders.

“I know.”

“So,” I said, smirking now. “Be honest. Did you ever have a thing for Elliot?”

Marco jerked his head back in surprise. Then he rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that had been floating in the water. “Are you serious?”

I shrugged. “I mean, everyone else seemed to. Girls, anyway.”

Marco raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No. Not Elliot. It’s not that he’s…not good-looking.”

Then Marco blushed, I imagined because if he thought Elliot was good-looking, he thought I was good-looking. But I was used to that. It didn’t change the fact that every girl I’d ever met thought Elliot was the hotter twin, somehow. 

“Then what? Is it like, you just don’t like straight guys?” I was like that. Couldn’t stand them. That was part of the reason I couldn’t stand the football team. 

Marco huffed out a humorless laugh. “No. That’s definitely not it. I don’t know why, but…Elliot always kinda…and don’t take this the wrong way.” Marco gave me a stern look and I nodded at him to continue. “Elliot reminded me of a girl. So…I just couldn’t see him that way. Which was nice, you know, not having to be the cliché and fall for my straight best friend.”

I smiled at that. “No, I know what you mean. Elliot is –”

“Eccentric?”

“Girly,” I said, and shrugged. And, I know at this point you’re probably thinking, what? How could a guy as popular as him, as idolized by all the guys in our school as him, as chased after by all the girls in our school as him, be girly? But he was. The thing is, the exact reason everybody loved him was because he would do something guys didn’t do, and then make it look awesome. He’d wear pink flip-flops and concealer on his face. Once in a while he cut the bottom of a shirt off and wore it like a crop-top. He used women’s shampoos and body washes. He was _super_ high-maintenance about hygiene. Clipping his nails, washing his face, shaving his stomach and face, flossing twice a day and so on. 

And somehow, he just didn’t care when he was teased. He could turn right around and make you feel like the jackass for not smelling like grapefruit or having dirt under your nails or denying yourself the comfort of flip-flops when it was hot out. He just didn’t care, and that made him cool. I cared a lot, which made me lame. And he became even cooler when he didn’t care that I was there with him. 

Now that I thought about it, it made complete sense that he started plucking his eyebrows. I just didn’t know how I never noticed. 

“I think the reason I gravitated toward him when he joined the team was because I thought he was gay,” Marco said, chuckling. “I was like ‘Finally! Another gay football player!’ But of course not.”

Then I felt bad. I couldn’t stand being around the football team. It wasn’t even that they were openly homophobic so much as they had to remind you that they were straight at every possible second. It was like, we get it, you like tits, ya know? And even if they didn’t call me a faggot or anything like that, I sensed that _they_ sensed that I wasn’t like them. And they thought they were better than me. 

I wondered how Marco put up with it. I wondered what it must be like to be on the team and be attracted to guys. 

I guess I’d find out this fall…

But I didn’t want to think about that. Because I just realized, the thing I thought Marco told Elliot not to tell me was that Marco was gay and gay for Elliot. But it wasn’t, because my brother was fine with Marco being gay and Marco wasn’t gay for Elliot.

“Hey, Marco?” I asked.

He was swimming in small circles around the deep end and didn’t hear me at first. But when he caught me staring, he took that as me waiting to get his attention, and I was just fine with that being the reason.

“Hmmm?” he said, swimming back to the lip of the pool.

“When you called me to ask if, you know, I really killed myself, and you thought I was Elliot…”

Marco bit his lip, waiting for me to get to the point. Suddenly I felt almost too shy to ask. After all, he’d specifically asked Elliot not to tell me.

Then again…he was disappointed when I told him that Elliot had never said anything to me…

“What was it that Elliot never told me?” I asked. When my eyes met his warm brown ones, his face went pale. He swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. Then he sighed, lifted himself out of the pool and onto the tiled floor. He yanked our towels off the towel rack and tossed me one. I stood up out of the pool and quickly dried off. I figured he was going to ask me to leave. I’d pissed him off, and now he didn’t want to hang anymore. I stepped over the line, like I always seemed to do with people I wanted to get to know. Face hot, I stared at my feet and walked toward the door back into his house. 

He placed a hand on my shoulder stopping me. I looked up at him and his hand dropped. He stepped back, like he didn’t want to scare me. What the hell? I cocked my head at him.

“I want to be honest,” he said. “But I don’t want you to freak out.”

I blinked. I probably couldn’t promise that.

“What?” I asked, anyway.

“Because that’s what always happens. It’s either because I’m gay or because I – tell them what I’m about to tell you. And then they – they’re never the same around me again.”

“Jesus, Marco,” I said, a little bit freaking out. “Just say it, man. I’m in no position to stop talking to you.”

He winced at that. “Okay, just…promise me, you’ll at least let me drive you home if you’re – you know, if that’s what you want.”

“Sure,” I said. “Now just fucking say it.”

“I like you. I’ve – I’ve liked you almost as long as I’ve known Elliot. And – and I told Elliot because he’s my best friend. But also because…I needed to know if he’d – I don’t know. If he was okay with it.”

I gaped at Marco. I mean, it made sense. It did. It was kind of obvious to me now. He was the only one who seemed truly disappointed when I died, other than my parents. But still…if he’d never told me, I would have never guessed.

“Um,” I croaked. “How long is that?”

“How long have I known Elliot?” he asked, and I nodded. Marco blushed. “Four years.”

My eyebrows shot up.

He threw his hands up in defense, like I was a cop about to arrest him. “It’s not like you’re the only guy I’ve liked in the past four years, okay? And it’s – it wasn’t always so – I don’t know. It was just a dumb crush.”

“But now it’s not?” I asked.

Marco deflated and sunk into one of the lawn chairs bordering the pool. “No. It’s not just a crush anymore.”

I sat in the chair adjacent to his. I wasn’t even looking at him. I was so awestruck. “I don’t think anyone’s ever liked me before.”

Marco smiled. “I doubt that’s true…Probably the first guy to, though.”

He looked so embarrassed. I hated it. I hated seeing him look embarrassed over something that made me feel so happy. I hadn’t felt this happy in years. And he couldn’t understand what it was like to have never been wanted before in your life, not even by yourself, and now here was someone who says they did. They gave a shit if you lived or died, even if you didn’t.

“Marco,” I breathed.

He looked up and I leaned into him. On purpose? I honestly don’t know if what I did was on purpose or not. I don’t know if it was out of desperation or genuine desire. I don’t know if I was just doing it to feel even more wanted. I don’t know if I used him when I kissed him.

Marco startled, but then eased toward me as slowly as someone approaching a butterfly they didn’t want to scare. He placed his hands on both sides of my face and his palms felt so warm my cheeks tingled. My nerves felt charged, buzzing like a hive that’d been disturbed. I touched him too. I slid my hands over his shoulders and felt the strength in them. Goosebumps rose on his skin now, and he groaned as I eased myself over him, straddling him – which was weird, because it felt so natural to do that – and pressed my bare chest to his. Now I was really shaking. I’d never felt so much skin-to-skin contact. He was so warm, and firm, and gentle, I knew that if I let go I wouldn’t fall back.

Our lips parted. His eyes met my own. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” I said. 

“Why, did you do that?” 

“I don’t know.”

His eyes roamed over me. He placed one of his hands against the small of my back. “Are you even…?”

“I’m…”I started. And then I had to count to three just to say it. “Bi. Bisexual. You know, uh, both?”

He smiled then. “I know what it is.”

“Well, there you go.” 

This felt so good. I couldn’t imagine anything else feeling better. And we weren’t even naked. Were we going to be? His house was empty. It was midafternoon, long before my parents would care if I was home. I had no reason not to. Chirst, I was eighteen and I’d never gotten further than this. No one would blame me.

Except, I still couldn’t. Even as I ached for more of him, this was the first time I’d ever told anyone I was bi. Or frankly, the first time ever using the word. This was the first time I’d ever even entertained the thought of touching a guy, let alone kissing him, straddling him, having sex with him in the pool room. It was too much all at once. 

He noticed. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, the same way I might, if say, I was walking on a tight-rope staring straight down. 

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Have you ever done this before?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’ve had sex with two guys. Just the two times.”

That made me even more nervous. He was even experienced. Could I catch a single break?

“I’ve had sex with no one every time,” I said, and this made him laugh. I wished I could keep making him laugh. He was the only one that ever laughed at anything I said. 

“Why me?” I asked, then.

“I like guys that I can’t solve right away,” he said, smiling.

“What, like, Sudoku?” I said, sarcastically.

“More like, crossword puzzles,” he said. “I have a ton of newspapers in my room.”

“Are you serious?”

He grinned, and then he leaned in and kissed my neck really slowly. I could feel his breath and his tongue and the fullness of his lips and I shivered. “Do you want to go to my room?” he asked. 

I swallowed. I understood what he was really asking. If I wanted to take this further. 

But I didn’t want to have my first time with a guy. I realized then, that…I’d envisioned having my first time with a girl. And I couldn’t get that out of my head. I thought, if I had sex with Marco, I wouldn’t feel as though I’d actually lost my virginity. 

And like, now I know that that’s fucked up. And believe me, I wish I’d just been like _hell_ yeah let’s _do_ this, but naturally, I had to fuck things up first. Not as bad as that time I told my mom I jumped in the river, but, still pretty damn bad. 

“It’s okay,” he said, after I went too long without responding. “I want you to want it.”

I shivered again. “Okay.”

His hands slid off of my body and I stood up off of him, immediately regretting what I’d just done. But I couldn’t back out of it now. I followed him back into the house-house not the pool-house and while I changed into my clothes he made popcorn, grabbed a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew, and Doritos.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, he strolled by and chirped, “Follow me.”

I did, and I ended up in a movie theatre. No seriously, underneath his house was a fucking movie theatre. Light-up stairs, two rows of reclining seats with cup-holders and an overhead projector above of us. The lights dimmed when Marco clapped and a screen unraveled from a tube hanging from the ceiling. Then he handed me the remote.

I smiled, and my fingers tingled when his brushed mine.

…

Marco dropped me off at home around nine. We didn’t talk a whole lot in the car, and about nothing important. When he parked in my driveway, I turned to look at him, unsure of what to do. I _wanted_ to kiss him again. But I didn’t want to lead him on. There was no way in hell I was starting anything with him and for about a thousand reasons. But he looked at me with gentle eyes and a small smile. I knew he knew. He understood somehow, that though I had kissed him earlier, and though I hadn’t done it out of pity or just to make him feel better, I still wasn’t ready to be with him. 

I opened the door, but couldn’t step out right away. “I’ll see you next weekend? To practice?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’ll be here around eight.”

“Thanks, Marco,” I said.

“No problem.”

I felt like if I stayed in the car for one more second I’d go back to his place with him, so I shut the door and sprinted up to my front door. At the door, I took a moment to compose myself. I stood up straighter. Brushed my hair through my fingers. Prepared myself to be Elliot for the evening. Walk his walk. Talk his talk. 

When I stepped in, both of my parents rushed the door. 

“Where have you been?” my dad asked.

I looked up at him. “Uh, Marco’s? Where else?”

“Well you could have told us that,” my dad said.

My mom nodded. “You could have called.”

“And you could have found me if you felt like it. Why do you care, anyway?” I asked. 

My dad gritted his teeth and my mom held her hands together against her chest. “You know why, Elliot.”

I shook my head, stepping through them and heading toward my room. “I’m not Jean, you know. I’m not a flight risk.”

My mom flinched. My dad shook his head at me. He said, “We called you three times. Why didn’t you answer?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t feel like it. But I didn’t tell them that. That was something Jean would say. “I was in Marco’s pool.”

“Well, call us next time,” My mom called after. I threw my hand in the air and gave her the thumbs-up. I’d call them from now on just to get them off my back. But honestly, the less I had to talk to my parents the better. They already noticed all the tiny differences. All my slip-ups. I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I didn’t know I did that Elliot would never do. For now, they could blame it on losing my brother. But eventually they wouldn’t be able to deny that their son was more of a blend of two twins than the one twin that was supposed to be leftover. 

I shut my bedroom door behind me and climbed into Elliot’s bed. Staring at my ceiling, I recalled my kiss with Marco earlier. Even kissing Mikasa had never felt like that. I supposed because he knew I was me, and he wanted to kiss _me_. Miraculously, he’d fallen for me and not my brother. I couldn’t put into words the way that made me feel.

But it felt wrong. Not because it was gay. I guess, since I knew I liked guys, it wasn’t like I’d never fantasized about finding a boyfriend I could play videogames with and burp around and leave the seat up in the bathroom of the house we lived in.

But that was always, in my mind, way in the future. Long after I’d lost my virginity to the girl of my dreams and dated her for a while. And maybe even long after I’d dated several girls. I’d thought I’d be in college or even graduated before I dared date a guy and introduce my sexuality to my parents. And even then, I figured I’d only introduce a guy to my parents if I knew we were really serious, like I might be marrying him. By that point in my life, if my parents no longer wanted me in their lives, I’d have a life of my own to live without them.

But now there was Marco. And I liked him too. I had fallen for him quickly, but it never took me long to fall for somebody. Especially somebody who liked me back. 

I didn’t know what to do. I knew two things I could do – what I should do, and what I shouldn’t do. I knew what I should do – just date him and get over myself. I knew what I shouldn’t do – call Mikasa, my dream girl. 

I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and dialed.

“Hey,” she answered right away.

“Hey,” I said, in Elliot’s voice. “Can you come over?” 

“On my way.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wish now that I’d taken this as my opportunity to cut Mikasa loose. Our relationship wasn’t real. It wasn’t like I could be honest with her, earn her trust, _and_ lie about who I was. But at the time, it never even occurred to me that I had an alternative option. I did it without thinking as I do often.

“Elliot! The door’s for you!” my mom yelled.

I inhaled deeply, ran my hands down own of Elliot’s button-up shirts and walked into the hall. Mikasa stood at the door next to my mom, who didn’t look amused that I had company without her knowledge. But I supposed since it was a weekend, she wasn’t going to scold me for it. 

“Hey,” I said, to Mikasa, like it was no big deal she was here. 

My mom asked her if she would like anything to drink or eat and Mikasa said no, while taking her shoes off. She wore a plain blue t-shirt and Jeans. Her hair was down. It never mattered what she did to her appearance. Every time I saw her, she looked better than I remembered. And, every time, I would try to capture that image of her in my mind.

I reached for her hand – something that was becoming more natural for me – and guided her toward my bedroom.

“Behave,” my mom said, though she had given me a small smile when I wrapped my arm around Mikasa’s waist. Yeah, my parents liked Mikasa. They’d probably never like anyone I dated as much they liked the person I was pretending to date. And I couldn’t really blame them. She was polite. Got good grades. And she was a good influence on Elliot. Me. Same difference.

I closed the bedroom door behind us. When I turned around, I started kissing her. That was another thing I’d gotten used to. But it was everything I was about to do that I wasn’t used to. 

She eased onto the bed first, then me over her. I was nervous, almost too nervous to get into it. But she slid her hands up underneath the buttoned shirt I’d worn for her, and gently trailed her nails down my spine. I shivered, and deepened my kissing. My fingers curled in her hair, then in the fabric of her shirt. 

Before I knew what was happening, or could mentally prepare, she slid it off. I held my breath, and held back my reaction. I couldn’t look shocked, and I couldn’t drool, and I couldn’t do any of the things I might have done if I could be myself right now. But I was Elliot right now, and I’d seen all this before. She began unbuttoning my shirt, and before she finished I yanked it up over my head and tossed it on the floor. I curled my fingers underneath her bra strap now. Pulled it down her shoulder, felt her collarbones under my fingertips and pressed my lips against her warm skin.

“Are we finally going to again?” she asked. I kissed her instead of responding, and she smiled into it. 

“I’ve missed this,” I said, even though what I wished I could say was, “I’ve always wanted this.”

And that was true, though it felt hallow. Hallow because I kissed Marco earlier, and I held him shirtless against my chest earlier, and this didn’t quite compare. I knew it was because he knew who I was. She didn’t. 

She smiled then and kept kissing me. She reached for the button on my jeans and undid them, unzipped them, and eased her thumbs under the waistband of my boxers. I choked. I jerked away. She looked concerned, and I quickly had to douse it. Because I couldn’t back out of this. I told myself I had to get it over with sooner or later. And I had to get it over with sooner or later with a girl. And even if she didn’t know I was Jean, that wouldn’t change the fact that it happened. I wouldn’t be a virgin anymore. 

“Could uh…” I started, “Could you get the condom?”

I realized, almost instantly, how greatly in my favor this worked. I had no idea where Elliot kept his condoms. 

She scooted out from underneath me and walked over toward Elliot’s dresser, adjacent from his twin bed. I gazed at her back as she swung the top drawer open and rifled through his socks and boxers. She froze, and I thought Elliot must have been out. Which would mean we’d have to put this off even longer, until I could get somewhere and buy some more. I sat up in bed. “Mikasa? Are we out?”

“Elliot,” she said, really low in her throat. “Whose are these?”

“What?” 

She turned around and held up pink lace underwear. 

I didn’t understand what she was asking. “Uh, yours? You must have left them here.”

She threw them in my face. They fell in my lap. When I looked back up, her eyes were wide and glossy. Her hands were shaking. “Mine? Are you shitting me? Have you _ever_ seen me wear lace underwear?”

“Well…how would I know if it was lace or not?”

She inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Elliot. Have you ever seen me wear anything _pink_?”

“Yes? I mean, I don’t know. Fuck, Mikasa, I can’t remember.” I said. And I couldn’t. But I figured that was because I’d never seen her wear pink. Because if she’d ever worn pink, it would have been shocking. It would have stood out. I would have made a mental note of it. I would have captured a low quality image of it in my head. 

She yanked the underwear back up. “What size do I wear?”

I blinked at her. “That…feels like a trap.”

“What fucking size do I wear, Elliot? You’ve bought me clothes before! What. Size. Do. I. Wear?” She was gripping the underwear so tight I thought she’d rip them. I really believed she could, too. She was strong as hell. She could kick my ass if she wanted. And she looked like she wanted to…so…

I swallowed. “Small?”

She shoved the tag of the underwear in my face, so close I couldn’t focus on it at first. 

“Then why are these a fucking large?” 

I held the underwear in my hand and stared at the tag. “I…don’t know,” I said, honestly. I knew what she was implying. I knew she thought Elliot had cheated on her. And, frankly, maybe he had. I didn’t fucking know. I mean, he was able to leave her behind without even warning her ya know? So it seemed possible. But, what didn’t make sense to me, was why he wouldn’t have told me that he had cheated on Mikasa. And it didn’t seem like my brother to string anyone along that he’d lost interest in. I could admit that my brother had a short attention span. He got bored easily. He got bored even more easily with girls he dated. But he’d always cut it off with them. 

“You don’t know?” she said, and I could hear the sob in her voice now. “You don’t know when you cheated on me? Do you know who with? How long ago? And do you know what kind of girl leaves without her fucking underwear in the morning?!”

I stood up then, to reach for her, to pull her into my arms, to try to reassure her that I would never – that Elliot would never cheat on her, and that there must be an explanation, of which I would make up on the spot, except –

I stood up and my pants fell right to the ground. I tripped as I stepped toward her, and she stepped out of my way. I fell flat on my face, smack against the hardwood. And she yanked her shirt back on and stormed out of the room. 

By the time I got my pants half way up my legs and got myself out the bedroom door, she was already at the front door, opening it, and sliding her shoes on. My feet pounded against the floor as I approached her, and both my parents swung their heads around from where they were sitting in the living room.

“Elliot!” My mom cried, “What are you –”

“Mikasa, Mikasa,” I said, as I slammed the front door shut, stopping her from leaving. “You have to believe me. That underwear I – Look. They were probably Jean’s. I mean, not you know _Jean’s_ , but his – his girlfriend’s or something. I don’t know.”

She stared at me, expressionless. I could tell she was weighing the odds that what I’d just said was true. That I, Jean Kirstein, had gotten a girlfriend. And this girlfriend had left her underwear behind…in Elliot’s drawer. To be honest, the first part was much more unlikely.

“I’m not stupid, Elliot,” she said, under her breath. “The last thing you want to do right now is treat me like I am.”

She looked so hurt I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry. Listen, can we – I’d – I never meant to hurt you. I would never –”

“Then why did you?” she said. She yanked the door open, like I wasn’t even leaning against it, and I fell flat on my ass. She shut the door behind her, and I could hear her footsteps fading down the walkway.

When I stood up, my Dad was there.

“Button your pants, Son,” he said.

I buttoned my pants, and even zipped them. My dad crossed his arms and looked at me. “Did you cheat? Be honest.”

I didn’t know what to say. “No.”

“You swear?” he asked.

“It must have been Jean’s,” I said.

My dad raised an eyebrow. “Well, you better be telling her the truth. Because that girl was already too good for you and if you had any sense in you, you’d know better than to risk losing her.”

I stood straighter and nodded at my dad. Though it surprised me that he thought that, and surprised me even more that he would say that to Elliot. 

“Your mom wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Okay,” I said.

“She’s in your room.”

I sighed and headed back into my bedroom

My mom sat on my bed. I sat down on Elliot’s bed across from her. My mom held the underwear in her hands. 

“I didn’t cheat on her,” I said. 

My mom looked up at me then, as if I’d pulled her out of a deep trance. “I didn’t know Jean had a girlfriend.”

I ran my fingers through my hair – which I shouldn’t have done. Shouldn’t be doing at all anymore. It’s a me thing, not an Elliot thing. “I don’t think he did, but…”

“You think he could have had somebody?” she asked, and she looked so hopeful it hurt. It always hurts when you see your mom cry. But it’s even worse when you know it’s your fault. And the worst when she’s crying because she thought she learned something new about you after you died.

I couldn’t hurt her more. “Yeah, he…had someone…sometimes. Nothing…you know, no one worth introducing you to, but…”

My mom wiped her eyes. “Do you know if he…”

“What?” I asked, after a long moment.

“You know –”

“He wasn’t a virgin,” I said, indignant. If I had to be dead for my parents, they weren’t going to believe I died a virgin.

My mom rolled her eyes and waved me off. “I don’t care about that. I wanted to know, was he ever in love?”

I sat upright at that. What could I say? I didn’t want to lie to her, and I didn’t want to hurt her. “I…don’t know, Mom. I don’t know if he…he would have known it even if he was.”

She smiled at that, sadly. “Sounds like him.”

“It does?” I almost asked. But then I said, “It does.”

“Your father always thought, you know, that he was gay. We thought that might be why he never…introduced us.”

My eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

She nodded. “And I always thought…if he was, then he could keep that part of his life separate from this part. We wouldn’t ever have to see it, and he – he could live however he thought he wanted to. It’s not what I would have wanted, but I would have dealt with it.”

I went rigid, and gritted my teeth. This made me want to scream.

“But now…I – I think I’d prefer that be the reason he never introduced us. Because now…I have to wonder why we didn’t get to meet her. Why he didn’t want us to.” She held up the underwear then and dropped it on the floor. “There’s so little I know about him. I didn’t even know if he liked girls! And – And I just – just wish I could have known him. I don’t even care anymore who he was. If he was – He was someone I wanted to know.” 

“Mom, I’m –” I started, before catching myself. I almost told her everything and I had to swallow the words down again. “I’m sorry you didn’t know him. But I – I could tell you anything you want to know about him. I know him – knew him, really well.”

She sobbed and laid down in my bed, and hugged my pillow to her chest. “I just – can’t ever forgive myself for – for ignoring it. We – we were so convinced he – and we didn’t know how to act. And his depression just – just made it feel like anything we did – tried to do – we were always walking on egg shells. Anything could – could make it worse. We were so afraid of – of losing him that we _lost_ him.”

I was so frozen in place I had to pry myself off of Elliot’s bed and step over to her. I knelt in front of her on the floor and held her hand while she cried.

“I just want to know my son,” she rasped. “I just want know that he – that he was happy, sometimes. That he – he had something he enjoyed. Someone who made him h-happy.”

“He – He did,” I stammered. “I mean, obviously. Because – of the underwear. And he – he wasn’t always sad Mom. He – he – It wasn’t your fault.”

I didn’t even know if I meant what I was saying. I just wanted to make her feel better at first. But I was crying too and her words were echoing in my head and I felt such a strong grip on my heart I could hardly breathe. She had never said anything like this before. Never even admitted to ignoring me, let alone giving a reason for it. I had no idea she felt this way and no idea that – she might be hurting as much as I was. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know if I could forgive her yet but I wanted to make her feel better if nothing else. 

I stroked my mom’s hair the way she did mine in the hospital when I swallowed all those pills until she stopped crying. When she stopped, it wasn’t because she felt better, but because she’d exhausted herself. She fell asleep in my bed, holding on to my pillow. I covered her with my blanket. 

Then I stepped out of the room, so she could be in there alone with what was left of Jean. 

…

It was the following Friday. I’d given Mikasa a week of space after what happened. Now my parents were staying at my grandparents for their 50th anniversary bash tomorrow, and wouldn’t be home until Sunday. This was the only time I figured I could call her, ask her to come over, and we could have it out. As long as she needed to grill me about the underwear, and the cheating that I hoped never happened, we could. And by the end of the night, or the weekend, or whatever, hopefully she’d trust me again. 

I wish now that I’d taken this as my opportunity to cut Mikasa loose. Our relationship wasn’t real. It wasn’t like I could be honest with her, earn her trust, _and_ lie about who I was. But at the time, it never even occurred to me that I had an alternative option. I did it without thinking as I do often.

She agreed to come over. To my surprise, she didn’t even argue. Didn’t curse or yell at me. She just said, “On my way,” like she usually did, and fifteen or so minutes later there was a knock at my door.

I opened it. She walked right past me toward my bedroom. It took me a minute to process that, but then I was right behind her. In my bedroom, I sat on my bed and she sat on Elliot’s. I didn’t want to, you know, get too close or make her uncomfortable. I didn’t want her to think that I’d invited her over to attempt to have sex again. 

I held my breath when she looked me in the eyes. “I feel so stupid,” she said. 

I jerked my head back. “Um…that’s my line.”

“No, it’s not. How could I expect you to know if Elliot had cheated on me,” she said.

I blinked at her. “Because…I’m him?”

“No, you’re not. You’re Jean.”

I stared at her, gauging how certain of her statement she was. She looked like she knew it better than I did.

I blinked. “How’d you know?”

“A lot of things. How you touched me. How you kissed me.” She stared out the window, and blushed. “But you asked me to get a condom. Which Elliot always did himself. And then, all week, I found myself thinking ‘why would Elliot ask me to get a condom from the drawer the underwear was in’? As if he was _trying_ to get caught cheating. So I thought, at first, maybe, he was. Maybe he was one of those guys that didn’t want to break it off themselves, because he didn’t have the guts. So he was giving me a reason to. But the more I thought about it, the more I pictured your face when you saw the underwear.”

“My face?” I asked.

“You looked just as surprised to find out you were cheating on me as I did.”

I winced.

“So…Elliot…is he?”

She looked oddly calm while asking it, but she was wringing her hands together. She was worried. 

“He ran away. He wouldn’t let me tell anyone. I needed an excuse for him being gone. Only problem is, they’d look for him if he wasn’t dead and he wouldn’t kill himself. But I…”

“You would kill yourself,” she said, simply, as if that was the answer to a math problem.

“Uh…yeah.”

“So…he just left me. Didn’t even leave a note. No explanation. No goodbye.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Didn’t have the guts.”

I snorted. I still liked her so damn much.

She stood then, and walked toward me. She placed a hand on my shoulder. I flinched.

“And you…you like me?”

“Um…”

“You kiss me like you do.”

I let out a nervous laugh, but looked away from her. “You know, Mikasa, I don’t want you to think that I didn’t tell you because I just wanted to –”

“Use me?” she asked.

I looked up when I heard the sound of a zipper. She was unzipping her hoodie. Underneath she wore a spaghetti-strap tank-top. She took that off too. 

“Um…” My voice cracked. “What are you doing?”

She leaned down to look me in the eyes. “It’s not like Elliot would care.”

“Well, I guess that’s –”

And then her bra dropped and I felt my whole body go slack. I couldn’t not look at them. They were just – so fucking perfect, I mean, listen. I don’t want to get into the dirty details with you. I mean, I don’t even know you. And even if I did, Mikasa doesn’t, and after everything I did to her, I can’t go around telling everyone what her body looked like when we had sex. 

But let me tell you this, when she finished undressing, I’d never seen anything more perfect in my entire life. I couldn’t believe anyone could be that beautiful. I kept looking over her, trying to find one thing wrong with her, and I couldn’t. I’d put every inch of her in my mouth without hesitating. And I was left just wondering what I had ever done to deserve the best thing that could ever happen to anyone happening to me. I didn’t deserve it, I decided. But it was happening to me anyway.

She took my shirt off for me – I wasn’t in any kind of place to move my own arms. 

“It’s not like, Elliot would care if I slept with his twin brother two months after he left?”

“Definitely not,” I squeaked. 

She unbuttoned my jeans for me again, unzipped them again. And, way too eager to get on with it, I eased my own pants down my legs onto the floor. While I did, she went and grabbed a condom from Elliot’s drawer. Then she pushed me down on the bed and straddled me. I was still in my boxers and she pressed down on my tent and I held in a moan. She could tell. 

“Are you a virgin, Jean?” she asked.

“Yes,” I yelped. 

“Are you nervous?”

“Yes,” I repeated, in exactly the same deafening pitch.

“Do you want to touch me?” she asked.

I nodded this time, unable to find my voice. She leaned down and kissed me, slowly, with her tongue and everything. I started shaking.

“Go ahead,” she whispered.

I let out a noise as I slid my hands over her. Down her shoulders and collarbones until my hands were against both her breasts. I was so hard I thought I’d burst but I tried not to think about it, even as I kept touching her, because I needed to last longer. She’d be able to compare us. She’d compare my brother, who I could only imagine was a God in bed, to me, who would be a lot more like…a gnome in bed. Or something worse, if I wasn’t careful.

She scooted down my legs and wrapped her fingers under the waistband of my boxers. I clutched the sheets and squeezed my eyes shut as she gradually slid them down. I reminded myself, over and over, that my dick couldn’t be _smaller_ than Elliot’s. That at least, was on my side.

Before I opened my eyes, something sticky and saranwrappy rolled over it and I felt the pressure of her fingers against me. I let out a gasp and gripped the sheets tighter. She hovered over me again, but didn’t press down.

“Jean,” she whispered, and I could have groaned from hearing my own name on her tongue. “Open your eyes.”

I did. And then I shuddered as she eased herself down onto my dick.

I gripped onto her as she rode me. She was so tight and warm and wet all at once and I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t help but moan. I couldn’t help but kiss every part of her that my lips could reach. I tried to touch everywhere my lips couldn’t reach. I threaded my fingers through her hair and trailed them down her back. My hand grazed her smooth thigh and stomach. Her skin felt like silk under my fingers. She started to make sounds and abruptly I had to stop her. I wouldn’t last. I couldn’t endure both having sex with her and listening to her while we did. 

I needed to occupy my mind somehow.

“Can we switch places?” I asked, breathlessly.

She nodded and we switched.

And let me tell you how fucking satisfying it is to thrust into a woman and the result is your name, moaned from deep in her quivering body. 

I about lost my fucking mind.

I couldn’t be slow. I couldn’t hold back. I couldn’t even think. It was just animal instinct from there. Feel good. Make her feel good. Feel even better. Make her feel the best. 

She dug her fingers into my back and kissed me like she meant it. The pleasure rose within me and I groaned her name. I told her I was close, and she smiled. 

Then she placed her lips on my ear. “You want to come?”

My body jolted and I couldn’t keep my thrusts even anymore. I started _fucking_. I fucked her until the pleasure rushed through me and out of me and made my whole body shake. I went slack on top of her, gasping, quivering, mourning. I didn’t want it to be over. I couldn’t believe all that I’d been missing out on.

“Mikasa,” I breathed. “That – you’re – Thank you.”

She giggled underneath me and I looked at her so that I could see her smiling.

“Did you – Did I – Was I?” I couldn’t even ask. Partly because I could barely breathe and partly because I was horrified of what she’d say.

“That was good,” she said, smiling and closing her eyes.

“It was?” I asked.

She nodded. “You did good, Jean.”

I grinned then, feeling even better than I had a few seconds ago. Then I eased out of her and collapsed on the bed next to her. 

“Good,” I breathed.

She curled up under my arm like she used to, when she thought I was Elliot, and I ran my fingers through her hair. 

I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Like, I was just used. 

There was another feeling. A guilty feeling. 

For having sex with my brother’s girlfriend? No, that wasn’t it.

But I couldn’t think of it. 

My body felt too relaxed. I felt too sleepy. I had the girl of my dreams naked in bed with me, and all I wanted in the world was to sleep next to her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God, I could have told her I loved her. I mean, I didn’t love her. I didn’t know that then though. When I was eighteen, and she was the only serious crush I’d ever had, and she was the only person I’d slept with, I thought I loved her. It wasn’t until I actually fell in love for the first time that I realized that what I felt for Mikasa wasn’t love. She was a fantasy for me; I envisioned that she was the person I would love. But in reality, I respected her. I cared about her. I wanted to know her better. I wanted to be her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late guys. My husband came home from a deployment AND my school year started, so I've been pretty busy. Anyway thank you for reading and I hope it was worth the wait!

Mikasa nudged me awake, even earlier than I, Elliot, would normally wake up. But I skipped the grumbling and rolling over and shielding my eyes from the sun part and skipped right to acknowledging that I had morning wood, and oh yeah there was a naked girl in my bed. 

I scooted closer to her and threaded my fingers in her hair. Then, almost instantly, pulled away. I had no idea if I was still allowed to do that. 

“Hey,” she said, quietly.

“Hi-hey,” I squeaked and she smiled. 

“You can still touch me, you know,” she said.

I didn’t know. But I was about to ask. Actually, I was about to ask if I could do something I’d always wanted to do. “Can I – uh, can I try something?”

She arched an eyebrow. “There’s probably a better way to ask something like that.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. Probably. But I couldn’t articulate what I wanted. So I just did it. I spread her thighs apart with my hands and sunk under the covers. I realized instantly that I couldn’t do it like they did in the movies. The covers were suffocating me, and I couldn’t see a damn thing, which, I guess, I needed. 

She slid the covers off for me. Without even needing to be asked.

“Jean?” she asked.

I swallowed. “Can I?”

She blushed and looked away from me. Her legs tightened around my head. She was curling into herself. God, I could have told her I loved her. I mean, I didn’t love her. I didn’t know that then though. When I was eighteen, and she was the only serious crush I’d ever had, and she was the only person I’d slept with, I thought I loved her. It wasn’t until I actually fell in love for the first time that I realized that what I felt for Mikasa wasn’t love. She was a fantasy for me; I envisioned that she was the person I would love. But in reality, I respected her. I cared about her. I wanted to know her better. I wanted to be her friend. 

I didn’t know what I was doing with my mouth but it worked. I could do this as long as it took. I could listen to her, figure out what made her moan most, and stick with it. And I could just plain _listen_ to her. She sounded like nothing I’d ever heard. Not in porn, not in movies, not even in my head. She gripped onto my hair and arched her back. I touched her body again. Her legs kept tightening around my head. And then they _snapped_ like a jaw and I could feel her lips pulse against my tongue. I shivered. 

She let me go, and I scooted up the bed beside her again. She was breathing heavy with her eyes shut. When she opened them, they were all glossy and big. 

“No one’s ever done that before,” she said.

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What?”

“You’re the only person who’s done that for me,” she said.

My eyes widened and pride swelled in my chest. I flopped onto my back and crossed my arms under my head. “Damn _right_.”

I thought she’d laugh. Or even scold me. But instead, she said, “I think you’re the only guy that actually liked me. When it happened.”

I twisted onto my side again to stare at her. “What?”

She looked down at herself. I didn’t think she saw herself the way I did. She said, “You’re the only guy that actually liked me. When I had sex with them.”

I blinked at her. “Mikasa – I – My brother –”

She shook her head and then she did what I feared most. She cried and I was already wiping the tears away, not out of courtesy or out of affection but because, like a child, in that second, I thought that would make it go away. 

“He never did, Jean. I mean…he tried really hard to. But he never did.”

“Come here,” I said, and pulled her under my arm. She rested her head on my chest for a long time, until I thought she was back to normal. I doubted Mikasa was ever down for long. Soon it was brighter outside, and her parents would be expecting her home. She stood up, about to get dressed, when the doorbell rang.

“Shit,” I said. 

“Here,” she said, sliding my boxers and T-shirt on. “I’ll get it.”

“You sure?” I asked, but she’d already stepped out of the room. “Thanks?”

I laid in bed with my arms crossed under my head, deep in thought. And then it was interrupted by her stepping back into the room.

“Marco’s here,” she said.

I flung myself into a sitting position. “Who?” I asked, for some reason. I knew who it was. And even remembered why he was here. Football practice.

Mikasa was dressing in her own clothes now. Grabbing her purse and shoving stuff into it. Her contacts, wallet, sunglasses, and all that. I watched her in a trance. I didn’t want her to leave, but at the same time I wanted her to have left twenty minutes ago. I tried to think of something to say, something that would neatly tie up this whole thing. I mean, how could we just leave it like this? But we did, and she did. 

She let Marco in. He walked into my bedroom. I was sitting upright on Elliot’s bed, ass-naked, covered only by a blanket, and staring at him.

Oh, God. He looked – wounded. He looked…defeated. God, I can’t even describe it. He looked like he’d already _given up_. 

“You know,” he said, “We…don’t have to… hang today. If you don’t want.”

“No no no,” I rambled, “No – uh, just give me a sec, will you? I’ll get dressed and then uh, we can just –”

“I’ll be in the car.” He sighed. 

…

In the car, we were uncomfortably silent. Marco didn’t drive like he normally did. He didn’t stop long enough at stoplights and he drove through yellow lights. He looked like he kept zoning out, and suddenly remembered he was driving every few minutes. I stared at him in the corners of my eyes, trying to think of something to make his hands relax on the steering wheel. But he spoke first.

“Thought you felt like a creep,” he said, “pretending to be her boyfriend.”

I swallowed. Shoved my hands in my pockets. Stared out the window. “She found out about me.”

His eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t ask how. “So you _are_ her boyfriend.”

Was I? No, I couldn’t be. I didn’t think I was. I shook my head too fast. “No – she – it just happened. She just – did it. And then we – did it.”

He sighed again. “Can I ask one other thing?”

I met his gaze at a stoplight. I couldn’t believe he was still being so polite. I saw everything he held back just below the surface. Marco, I knew now, was capable of yelling. Capable of being mad. Capable of resentment. Even hate. He just wouldn’t let himself do it.

“Yeah, anything,” I rushed to say.

It took him a moment to ask. He blushed, and stared too hard at the road. “Why didn’t you do it with me?”

I opened my mouth to speak like I knew what I was going to say. I did not know what I was going to say.

“Because I was afraid to,” I said finally, but felt like someone had said it for me. 

His face softened a bit. “Because I’m a guy?”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds. My head was starting to hurt. I felt guilty and embarrassed. “Yeah.”

He didn’t speak for a long time. I felt the urge to say I was sorry, but like always, I swallowed it.

…

At his house, we watched more pre-recorded games. He quizzed me on what he’d already taught me, and I answered about half the questions right. Then he taught me new shit. What each position’s purpose was. He explained all the yelling the quarterback did before he threw the ball. After that, he explained a couple of common plays, but reminded me that every team had their own and that I would have to learn the ones for our high school team, the Titans.

But I couldn’t absorb any of it and I knew it. Not while Marco was acting like a robot next to me. I felt like I had to break through a wall to get to the real Marco but had nothing but a spoon to do it with. 

Marco shoved his hands into his hoodie’s pocket. “I can take you home, if you want.”

“Stop saying shit like that,” I said. “I want to see you.”

He turned to look at me. “Then what do you want to do?”

I bit my lip. I knew he wasn’t going to suggest that we workout, or watch a movie, or go swimming. Actually, he was probably hoping I’d go home. Maybe I should have taken that hint back at my house. That Marco would never say, “I don’t want to hang out today.” He’d merely give me the opportunity to say that _I_ didn’t, _hoping_ I actually didn’t.

So I just said what I really wanted to do, hoping he’d want to too. “Wanna show me your room?”

He blinked. Arched an eyebrow. Probably had a hot flashback of last weekend like I just did. He rubbed the back of his neck. It didn’t look like he wanted to show me his room. But he said, “Sure.”

I followed him down the hall and around the corner – his house had wings, for fuck’s sake – toward the very back of his house. We went down the stairs and turned left. To our immediate right was an atrium, with a tiny fountain and quoi fish swimming in it, surrounded by a garden the size of my backyard. Birds flew in and I realized that his house was the shape of a square, with four wings, and the center wasn’t part of the house at all, but actually outside. 

On our left was a gym. The wall was a glass windowpane just like the atrium had, and inside were tons of workout machines and shit that looked like it belonged in a jungle gym. The floor looked like it would squish a little if you walked on it, like it was made of rubber. The walls were mirrors and a TV was perched above them. 

I shook my head. “God damn, Marco.”

“My nanny likes to garden. I like to work out,” he said, simply.

Further down the Hall, in the very corner of the house, he swung the door open. His room looked like any old room, but bigger. He had a king sized bed, which he’d made, with a velvety black bedspread. Blackout curtains on all four windows, on both the south wall and the west wall. He had a desk with a laptop in the center and a shakily tall stack of newspapers on the left of it, and a much shorter, neater stack on the right. When we stepped around the corner – his room took up the very end of two walls of his house, so there was even a corner to step around in his room – two Lovesac bean bags were plopped on the floor in front of another big TV. Underneath was a TV stand with all the usual gaming consoles. On each wall were book shelves, one stacked to the brim with books, the other, with movies. 

“This is…” I started, “What I hope my first apartment looks like.”

He gave me a small smile at that. It made me feel better. 

“Well, it’s not much, but I like it.”

I walked up to his desk. The stack on the left were untouched, the stack on the right were newspapers with completed crossword puzzles. The top one was done in ink. I trailed my fingertips over the tiny indentations from his handwriting. 

“So,” he said, “Now what?”

I thought he was honestly just asking. I thought he was finally getting out of his funk, and probably just didn’t want to be bored. He probably just wanted to play videogames or something. Maybe now, if I asked, he’d teach me how to kick a football.

But I didn’t want to do those things. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I shouldn’t want it, and shouldn’t do it, but I also knew there was no point telling myself that. I knew what I was going to do.

I walked up to him slowly. He faced me, wearing the face of someone who’d just realized they might have food in their teeth. But the second I placed my hands on his waist, he just looked surprised. Then he looked relieved.

I kissed him, slowly at first, because I still had, like, zero self-confidence. But the more I got a taste of his tongue, the more I lost track of myself, the deeper I kissed him. He placed his hands on either side of my face, though I sensed he was holding back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, against his lips. I didn’t want to stop kissing.

“I don’t – I,” he started. He didn’t want to stop kissing either. But he did. He pushed me back a step by my shoulders. “I don’t want you to think that, like, you can just come here and…fool around with me. And…forget it ever happened the second you leave.”

My eyebrows furrowed, first in anger at him, and then anger at me. “Marco,” I said, as firmly as I could summon while my lips were still rubbed raw from the kissing. “You think I just forgot? Look – what happened with Mikasa… _She_ kissed me but _I_ kissed you.”

“But you like her,” he said, letting out a humorless laugh. “And she probably likes you. And you wouldn’t have to come out to your parents. Believe me, Jean, I’ve been here before. A boy likes me but not as much as he likes being straight.”

“I like _you_ ,” I said, and I was being honest. I wouldn’t tell him that I didn’t like Mikasa because I didn’t want to tell him something that might be a lie. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Mikasa right now. But I knew I liked Marco. 

Marco looked at me long and hard, measuring, I suppose, how much of what I said was the truth.

“You like me?”

I pulled him back into me. “Hell yeah, I do.”

He smiled. Blushed bashfully like he always did. 

He let out a shaky breath. “Okay.” And then we were kissing again, ravenously, within seconds. He fucking picked me up and wore me like a backpack, but against his chest instead of his back. I latched my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. It felt weird to do that, but again, natural. Just like straddling him was. He carried me over to his enormous bed and flopped me down on it. Then he leaned over me, his body still between my legs and his chest still pressed against me. I curled my fingers in his flannel and he combed his fingers through my hair. Both of us were out of breath and trying to kiss despite it. 

Abruptly, he pulled away and the words, “Mind if I go down on you?” fell out of his mouth onto my face.

“W-what?” I asked.

He laughed.

“I mean, yeah. No, wait, I mean no! I mean, no, not even a little bit at all. Do I mind.”

He laughed some more, as he slid my shirt up and off of me. I unbuttoned his flannel, and I was only extremely pissed that he’d had to wear the most complicated kind of fucking shirt there was, on the day I would attempt to take it off of him. I only stumbled on every single button. And after undoing the last one, I gave up on the idea of him taking his _whole_ shirt off. Specifically, me making an ass of myself while doing it. 

He hummed against my neck and slid his hand down my stomach. Then he started trailing kisses down my chest toward my jeans. As if it was easy, he unbuttoned them and unzipped them at the same time. I was so obviously hard in my boxers and embarrassed about it. But he bit his lip when he saw it. His fingers eased under my boxers and something fluttered in my stomach. Even though I wasn’t a virgin anymore, I was still nervous. 

But he pulled my boxers down enough to expose me. He let out a long breath, and smiled. I couldn’t help but look for some sign of disappointment in his face, but couldn’t find any. I started to relax a little. 

He bent his head down, and pressed his lips against my dick. Even that felt amazing. I shakily sighed. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

At first he just used his tongue, and I squirmed a bit because I could barely feel it. Finally, he slid me into his mouth and I moaned. It was completely different from having sex. Hotter and wetter, but not as deep. It might have been too intense to handle otherwise. The heat of his breath felt nice.

I hitched myself up on my elbows to watch. His head went down slow, came up even slower. I continued to squirm underneath him, breathing heavy already. I’d gotten so turned on this morning when I ate Mikasa out, and had been low-key horny ever since and now he was going to take his time even though I needed this _now_.

“Marco,” I moaned, “God, please…” 

I never said please. 

He made a sound on me and I shivered. At last, he sped up on me. I moved my body in ways I never had before trying to get deeper into his mouth, and he just rolled with it. I made noises I never made before too – or maybe I had, with Mikasa, but I’d repress these one’s like I’d repressed those. 

I could tell he’d done this before. He knew exactly where to keep his tongue. I never felt his teeth. Just hot inner cheek and the pressure from his wet tongue and his full lips tight around me. I was already close and then he had to go ahead and fucking unbutton and unzip his own pants. His shoulder and arm jerked in a telling way and I could have passed out. I mean, how hot is that? The idea that Marco was so turned on from going down on me that he had to jerk off made my legs go weak and damn near made my eyes tear up. I whimpered from the sound of his hand on himself and the moans I felt against my dick. I was _so_ close now.

I placed my hand on the back of his head and pressed down slightly, like I’d pretty much always wanted to do. Then he let me thrust into his mouth. That too, I could barely handle. I was fucking his mouth at the same time he was fucking himself and I thought I’d die.

I very nearly did, I swear. The pleasure coiled so thoroughly within me that I bit my own hand. And when it finally overflowed, it rose up and out of me so slowly that I could feel the intensity of my orgasm rise for several seconds. I bucked my hips trying to make it last, moaning so loudly I couldn’t hear my thoughts, and I let out Marco’s name when I came down his throat, pinning his head down over me. 

I was sensitive for several minutes afterward, panting and stroking Marco’s cheeks with my thumbs affectionately. He didn’t pull off until he knew I was ready. Once he stood up, his own pants were zipped and buttoned again.

“Wait,” I croaked, “Did you come?”

He shrugged. “No, but it’s not a big deal.”

I squinted at him. My head was still foggy. I could fall asleep in seconds if I didn’t fight it. My whole body still tingled. 

“Yeah, it is,” I said. 

“I don’t want to make you do anything you’re not ready to do,” he said.

And I sort of hesitated, at that, because he was right. I mean, I didn’t want to suck his dick. Or…I did and I didn’t. What I meant was, I _thought_ I wanted to suck his dick. But there was still a part of me, the part of me that had grown up pretending to be straight, that thought I’d be disgusted. And I was afraid that if I tried to blow him, I’d confirm this fear. 

But I didn’t want him to be right, either. 

“Come here,” I said, and scooted up the bed. I patted the space beside me and he laid down. He placed his hand on my cheek.

“Did you like that?” he asked.

“Oh, fuck you,” I said. “You know I did. Who wouldn’t? I thought I’d die.”

Marco giggled against my neck at that. I kissed him. I still wanted to kiss him. No part of me was confused about that.

“But I still don’t want to leave you hanging,” I said, taking the opportunity to press my hand against his abs. I mean, they were there, you know. So I had to.

Marco arched an eyebrow. “Why, you going to return the favor?”

I deadpanned. “At least show me.”

He shook his head as he sighed, but rolled onto his back. He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans again. A second later he was easing them down, only as far as he’d done to me. 

I swallowed. I stared. I tried to think of something to say. He was still hard. 

And you know, I’m not going to read the veins on his dick and tell you his fortune. You don’t need to know all that. I know Marco well enough now to know that he’s a modest guy. He doesn’t show off and he doesn’t brag. He’s also a private person, and though I didn’t understand this at the time, he was not doing any of this with me just because. Marco doesn’t do things just because. He, to say the least, could have found a lot more than two guys willing to have sex with him before me if he wanted. But he’d had sex with the two he’d had because he loved them and trusted them. I’m not going to be any different. I got to do right by at least one person in my life, you know?

But anyway, I saw everything and I felt the exact same way I did when Mikasa got undressed. The fact that he was a guy didn’t make any difference. I didn’t prefer him, or her, and I wasn’t attracted to them in different ways. Someone I was attracted to was nearly naked in front of me, and my body went through the motions. I wanted to touch him. I got hard again, even though I’d just come. My stomach felt light and fluttery. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I wanted to see all of him.

Finally, I reached for him. “Can…I?” I asked.

Maybe I still wasn’t ready to blow him. But I was more than ready to touch him.

Marco looked surprised but once again, relieved. He swallowed thickly. “If you want.”

“I do,” I said, and reached for him. He felt heavy in my hand, and my mouth watered a bit. I couldn’t believe I’d never paid attention to how my own dick felt in my hand. I never thought about it. But I’d be thinking a lot about it from now on. 

I knew what to do, obviously. So I didn’t have to worry about being bad at it. While I stroked him, I kept an eye on his expressions. God, he looked like such a fucking man. And I couldn’t explain what appealed to me about that. His freckled cheeks flushed and his eyebrows furrowed and he pressed his lips together, trying to be quiet. I couldn’t resist encouraging him, my lips pressed against his ear, and kissing down his neck. I even gave him a hickey – there’s a lot of things I’ve always wanted to do, okay. He moaned my name and started thrusting into my hand.

It wasn’t much longer before Marco curled his fingers in his shirt and warned me that he was going to come. I perked my head up to watch. First his back arched, and I loved the shape of it. Then his abs flexed tight toward the center of his body. I exhaled. Marco whimpered my name and all at once, it was over. The come splattered against his chest and he throbbed inside my hand and Marco’s body went slack. His face softened and he let out a laugh before he looked at me.

He scrubbed his hands down his face. “Thank God,” he said. 

He kissed me, and I tried to keep any urgency out of it. He’d gotten me hard and ready again, but there was no way he was there with me. 

“Fuck,” he breathed, “I’m tired.”

“Me too,” I lied. I was before I’d touched him. In fact, I almost always was. At virtually any moment I could lay down and fall asleep without a problem. But not this time.

“Want to nap?” he asked.

And I smiled. I couldn’t turn him down. He looked so sweet. I nodded. 

He stood then. Dropped his flannel to the floor. Kicked his jeans and boxers off. Yanked his socks off one at a time. Lastly, he pulled some Kleenex out of a drawer and wiped up his stomach. I continued to stare. Muscles rolled in his body. At no point did he lose his balance. His body was speckled with freckles, scars, and hair, all over. Just like any guy’s was, I supposed. 

He wasn’t perfect. But I’d take every inch of him into my mouth without hesitating, next time. 

I undressed too, since I could, and then he eased into bed beside me. When I rolled over, he wrapped his arm around my waist and inched his arm up underneath my pillow to spoon me. Weird, but natural. 

He fell asleep moments later. I listened to his breathing, as his stomach rose and pressed against my back, over and over.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wish I would have started to tell him then. I wish I would have talked to everyone in my life a lot more. There was so much I had to tell my parents, Mikasa, and Marco, especially. Opening up to them is something I can do now, though it’s never been easy and probably never will._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, it's been a while. Sorry I've taken so long. I'll try to update more often. Thank you for reading!

I listened to Marco breathe the entire time he slept. My body cooled off, and I was no longer dying to be touched, but that didn’t help me sleep. I was thinking about how, since Elliot had been gone, I was different. I was a different person now than then. How well did he even know me, anymore? 

This morning, I had sex with his girlfriend, and not even twenty-four hours later, his best friend gave me a blow job. What would Elliot say to me, if he were here and I was able to tell him the truth? He wouldn’t be mad, I knew that, somehow. But other than that, I couldn’t say. How well did I really know my brother?

There were panties that didn’t belong to Mikasa in his underwear drawer. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me he’d cheated on her, or was cheating on her. 

My chest ached. My breaths were so deep, that when my chest sank with the exhale, I felt like it never made it up as high again on the inhale. My body was weighing me down. 

I recognized the feeling. The feeling of not caring whether or not I ate, if I finished eating. If I showered, if I finished showering. If I got out of bed, if I woke up. 

And it wasn’t what everyone thought it was. I think, when people think about people who are depressed, they think that every waking moment is misery. Or that, the person is always thinking about death, wanting to die, or planning to do it themselves. I don’t think that’s the case for most of us. Definitely not for me.

It’s more that, being alive exhausts me. There’s not enough incentive to stay alive. Nor enough motivation to kill myself. Existing gets redundant. Every day I wake up, and it’s like, what do you know, I woke up again, if that makes sense? It’s tedious. I’m running on E, and have been, for years now, with no destination. 

I missed Elliot. I missed him so much I wanted to throw things, but that would take too much work. So I just laid flat in Marco’s bed, curled my fingers in his comforter, and cried until the ceiling blurred.

Every part of my life I’d spent as an extra in Elliot’s life. Every memory I had worth remembering, was because of him. 

When we were eleven we shared a gym class and I was so bad at every sport that I got picked on. So when we started the football unit, and we got put on different teams, he switched mesh jerseys with me in the locker room. Elliot scored three times in one game, and after that, for the remainder of the school year, no one in gym messed with me because I had proven that I wasn’t bad at sports. Everyone thought, from then on, that the reason I didn’t play well was because I didn’t want to play. 

I had my first kiss because of him. We were thirteen and at a friend’s birthday party. It was our first coed birthday party, which meant all the stops were brought out. Seven Minutes in Heaven, Truth or Dare, and Spin the Bottle. Elliot didn’t want to kiss the girl his bottle had landed on, and he knew I _did_ want to kiss the girl his bottle had landed on, so he looked at me and said, “Elliot, wanna take this one?” No one even questioned that they’d mixed us up, all night. And the girl, clearly, didn’t want to kiss me. We ended up in the bathroom together, making out clumsily for the first time, because she thought I was Elliot. 

The first time I snuck out wasn’t even because I had somewhere to be. I couldn’t sleep, I was crying, and I was afraid I’d wake Elliot up. I slipped out the front door, ran five blocks away from the house and screamed and wailed and collapsed in the middle of the street until I felt that I’d gotten everything out. Then I walked to a park near our house, sat down at a picnic table, and just watched the nocturnal wildlife for a while. The sky faded in color and the sun would peek over the horizon soon. 

I walked back home, only to find our front door locked. When I walked around the house, I found Elliot’s and my bedroom window wide open. He’d left a Post-It on the windowsill that read “Got your back.” Mom and Dad never caught me, even though my mom had woken in the night, which was how the front door ended up locked. Elliot had gotten up, told her that he’d forgotten it was trash day tomorrow, and had run the trash out. 

He called the ambulance when I swallowed all the pills. He was the one that found my passed out body in the bathtub, the one to tell the doctors what I ingested and how much of it. I had to have my stomach pumped at the hospital and the whole time, I was half-consciously fighting the nurses off. I could hear Elliot nearby, pleading with me to stop. I felt him swat my face so that I would open my eyes and look at him. His eyes were blood-shot, teary, and his face was deathly pale. “Don’t do this to me, man,” I heard, like it was coming from 500 hundred miles away. He said please, gripped on to my hand, held my head for me before I could fall forward. He held on while the first tube went down my throat, and I clawed at my neck, deliriously trying to pull it out. When the second one went down, he pinned my arms back behind me, so that I couldn’t fight anymore. My eyes watered. I gagged relentlessly. Felt like I was going to throw up, and then the doctors filled my stomach with saline, which felt cold in my gut. After, I had to swallow something that made me throw up.

Elliot damn near clung to me. Even when he was on the phone with our mom, and then our dad, both at work. He was so panicked on the phone I could hardly believe it. Elliot never lost his cool like that. 

They put me on an IV, because I was dehydrated. I laid on my side, gripping my stomach, and Elliot refused to even sit on the chair nearby. He sat on the bedside, his back pressed against mine. He was crying. Scolding me. Yelling at nurses with poor bedside manners. He was practically incoherent, demanding them to get me a blanket, a second pillow, water, and something to eat. 

By the time my mom got there, I’d passed out. Only then did Elliot leave my bedside to head home, grab my sketchpad, phone, and headphones, since anyone who attempted suicide had to spend the night to be kept an eye on.

He spent the night too.

Marco woke to the sound of me crying, and I sobered up quickly, wiping my face on his comforter and turning away from him like I’d been sleeping.

Marco placed his hand on my waist. “Jean?”

“ _What_?” I snapped, and he slid his hand off of me.

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. Fucking…fine. I’m fucking fine. What do you want?” I asked.

He hesitated to respond. “I know you don’t know me very well yet, but…I hope you know you can –”

I flung myself out of his bed and started getting dressed. I hated when someone saw everything underneath my skin, and then had the nerve to believe they could clean the mess. I hated being vulnerable in front of anybody, especially people who’d never felt like this a day in their life when I felt this every morning and night like it was as basic a human function as taking a piss. And Marco, he lived in a different reality than I did. He had bad days. I had good days. And my good days were still worse than his bad ones. 

That’s really, what separated people like me from everyone else. Is it easier to count the good days than the bad? Well, then, you’re like me.

“Would you take me home?” I said, like I’d been asking him for weeks and he’d blown it off each time. 

Marco looked more than concerned. He actually looked like someone had just told him it was up to him to save the world. But he didn’t say anything out loud. Just stood, got dressed, grabbed his keys and wallet and walked toward his bedroom door, three steps ahead of me. He looked over his shoulder at me the whole way to the car, but still, didn’t say anything.

And he drove just like he did on the way here. Once he actually had to slam on his brakes to avoid rear-ending someone. He cursed under his breath in a way that was so unlike him. I shuddered. I would think about what he was thinking about later.

He dropped me off, and didn’t pull away until he saw me slip in through the front door.

…

I can’t tell you what I did for the next three weeks, because I don’t really remember. That happens to me sometimes. I just sort of stop paying attention to what I’m doing, put myself on autopilot, complete only the bare minimum of necessary tasks to get me through the day, and sleep the rest off. My parents noticed, and I had to tell them it was because Mikasa broke up with me since she was still convinced I cheated on her. 

Marco waited two weeks. Then he started texting. Finally, almost toward the end of July, he started calling. On a Friday night – what day it was for sure I don’t know – I answered on reflex, being woken out of sleep to the loud ringing of my phone buried in my sheets.

“What?” I asked.

“Jean? Jean!” he said, and only then, when my chest ached at the sound of his voice, did I realize that I had missed him. 

“Oh – uh – I – Hi, Marco,” I said. “Sor – Look, about last week, I –”

“Jean – Do you know what day it is?” he asked.

I considered lying, but didn’t. “No. Look, I –”

“If you don’t want to see me anymore, I –”

“No! No – I do. I – right now. Do you think? Come over?” 

He sighed in relief on the other end. I liked the sound of that too. My stomach fluttered. Abruptly, I couldn’t fucking wait to see him. I scrambled to clean my room, and just as quickly stopped. I had to shower and shave first. I was a bigger mess than my room. I ran to the bathroom.

“Hello? Jean?” he asked.

I skidded to a stop in the hallway. “Huh? What?”

“Did you hear me? I said I’d be right over.”

“Good. Good. Thanks, Marco,” I said.

He let out another relieved breath. “Thanks, Jean.”

…

I had no idea what time of day it was until I got out of the shower. It wasn’t even nine yet, but I’d slept all day. My parents must have been out, at a movie, or whatever. They were always out on weekends. I thought it was a small relief for them to be away from me. 

Marco rang the doorbell just as I was pulling a shirt on. He followed me into my bedroom, shut the door behind him, and after I gestured for him to sit, he sat down in the office chair at the shared desk that separated Elliot’s and my bed. I sat down in my own bed and faced him. Well, actually, I laced my fingers, placed my elbows on my knees, and stared at his feet. 

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine, now,” I said, cringing directly after. The plan had been to seriously sugar-coat everything going on in my head. I could have told him I got food poisoning, or the stomach flu, or something. Anything to avoid being peered into like this.

Marco hesitated before he wheeled himself up to my bed and placed his feet on the bedframe, on either side of my legs. 

“Elliot used to tell me about you,” he said.

I perked my head up to look at him.

“He said you whimpered in your sleep, almost every night. He said you barely ever sketched anymore. Stopped listening to music. Stopped doing your homework. Got fired from you first job because you were always late. He didn’t like that you went to a therapist because you stopped talking to him when you did.”

“Why was he telling you that?” I spit.

“He wanted advice. He was worried about you,” Marco said. 

When I didn’t respond, he added, “I learned a lot about you through Elliot. Sometimes, I felt like I even knew you.”

He swallowed then, and leaned toward me. “You don’t ever have to talk to me about it. But you can’t expect me to – to act like I don’t see it. You can’t expect me not to care.”

“Why?” I demanded, even though, _as_ I was saying it, I didn’t want to be saying it. I wanted to apologize to him. To thank him. To cry in front of him and not care. But instead, I said, “It’s not like you’re my fucking boyfriend.”

He leaned away from me then, but held on to his cool expression, as if I hadn’t just thrown a low blow. He said, “I know. But am I your friend?”

I softened then. My lip quivered. I looked away from him. “Yeah, I mean…of course.”

He gave me a fragile smile at that, then rolled away. “You aren’t going to a therapist anymore, right? Maybe you should.”

“I don’t want to,” I said. Which wasn’t entirely true. I wanted to see _my_ therapist, as _me_. But if I brought it up to my parents, even if it didn’t freak them out that Elliot needed a therapist just like Jean The Son That Killed Himself, they probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to set me up with the _same_ therapist.

Marco exhaled. “Fine, then. But you should talk to somebody. Mikasa, maybe, since,” and he paused to rub the back of his neck. “Since you guys are –”

“I don’t like Mikasa anymore,” I said. And the moment I said it, I realized it was true. I had liked Mikasa, a lot. More than I’d ever liked anybody, including Marco. But after sleeping with her, I didn’t think I could anymore. I didn’t even know her that well. And now, there was no mystery left. There was no _what if_ or _I wonder what it would be like_. I liked having sex, but it didn’t matter if it was with her. So, take away the sex, and what was left of my crush on her? 

Marco raised his eyebrows. He looked hopeful for all but a second, and then only frustrated. “Okay, then – Jean, you can’t just keep this bottled up or –” 

“Marco,” I choked, looking up at him then. “I promise I will talk to you about it. But not today.”

He slouched, relaxed, and exhaled again. 

I wish I would have started to tell him then. I wish I would have talked to everyone in my life a lot more. There was so much I had to tell my parents, Mikasa, and Marco, especially. Opening up to them is something I can do now, though it’s never been easy and probably never will. Then though, I thought all that was holding me back was knowing that my brother had wanted me to talk to him, not some random stranger that had never helped me all that much anyway. And it felt wrong to start being the person he wanted me to be, with people that weren’t him. 

I gestured for Marco to come closer. Tentatively, he rolled up to me again. I leaned into him. 

“Marco,” I started. “I’m – I shouldn’t have – said you’re not my boyfriend.”

“It’s okay. I’m not,” he said, too quickly.

“No, you don’t get it. I don’t like Mikasa. I don’t want her to be my girlfriend. I like you. I want you to be –” I had to stop midway to swallow. Marco was smiling, fondly at me. And now I was fucking blushing. This was so lame. 

He beamed then, pulling me into a kiss. “I want to be, too.”

And there you have it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And okay – I admit I wasn’t thinking about love in that moment. All this would hit me later, and yeah, the “L” word popping up casually in my head like that, as if it had always been there, and it had always been filed under “Marco” in my memory, would immediately cause a panic attack. But, the point is, it was_ better _than it was with Mikasa, already. Because I fucking loved him and didn’t know it yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while but thanks for reading! :)

August

Marco spent the rest of his summer teaching me how to kick in his backyard. It was difficult for him, since officially becoming my boyfriend, because I couldn’t care less about kicking a football. Instead, I frequently interrupted his instructions to pull him in by his waist, kiss his shoulders, and his lips and tug at the bottom of his shirt until he agreed to walk around shirtless if it meant I would kick a fucking football. But then I just ended up staring at his shoulder freckles, normally nearly the same brown as his skin, darken in the sun, and stare at his stomach and happy trail dampen with sweat as the hours passed, and he exerted himself significantly more than I did, fetching every ball I kicked, no matter how crookedly I kicked it, or how often it ended up flying over his ten-foot tall brick fence. 

Once school started my parents wouldn’t let me sleepover anymore. Even if they suspected nothing, and would never suspect Elliot of any such thing, they’d never much cared for sleepovers, even between friends, on school nights. They’d slack off the longer the semester went, especially after football season was over, but for now they’d keep up the pretense of caring about my football career and eventual college education.

That was how things felt lately, anyway. Like they were trying to be themselves, the parents they were before I died. Trying to care about things they used to care about, parent the way they used to parent. But I could sense that my death had shifted their priorities greatly, and sometimes I even thought for the better. They didn’t care if I played football, for one. It had always mattered to them that Elliot was in football, and so good at it. Part of why I always thought he was the favorite, was because he did something they were proud of, something that gave him hope for his future, however much he paled in comparison to the country’s top up-and-coming kickers. Elliot at least had a shot to play in college, which meant he at least had a shot of going pro. That gave them a lot to brag about.

They did more with me, besides football, which I only now realized was the only thing they ever used to do with him. I mean, to me, it had seemed like so much because they never did anything with me. But it had never occurred to me that they could have been doing more for Elliot too. That maybe, the only reason they did anything with Elliot was because it involved their interests. What were they going to do with me, after all? Watch me draw? Play video games? Maybe they didn’t know how to do things with me. Maybe they did things with Elliot because what they could do was obvious and easy to them.

Anyway, they took me out to dinner on weekends now. We had family movie nights too. Not planned, like in corny movies, like when the parents talk about movie night on Friday at seven or whatever and they take turns picking movies. All I meant was, when they watched a movie, they invited me to join them. Or if I was watching something, they joined me. It was kind of nice, actually. Not so much pressure, considering there was no obligation to keep up a conversation.

They were quiet people now. They went through the motions. Little surprised or concerned them. They went with the flow, took care of problems that came about, a broken phone, a leaky faucet, construction on the way to work, etc., and moved on. They’d hung up photos of me that hadn’t been up before. Photos of just me, which were rare. Elliot and I almost always took family photos together and I wasn’t one for social media. But other than that, they didn’t bring me up. Instead, I heard my mom cry at night, and my dad spent a couple hours in his study every morning, playing solitaire, drinking coffee, and staring out the window. Other than that, both of them had learned how to keep their screaming silent, inside of them, so that others wouldn’t notice. Just like I had been doing all my life.

It hurt. I wanted to tell them about me. I even brought it up to Mikasa. 

We were laying in Elliot’s bed, watching Netflix. She munched on popcorn.

“What would telling them accomplish?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I mean. They’d know, you know? So that’s…something.”

She kicked a few kernels around with her fingers in the popcorn bowl, searching for a piece with butter on it and not finding any. “They’d know that one son ran away and one son lied to them about it. I think it would make everything worse.”

“They gotta find out eventually,” I said, hoping she would disagree. Even if my conscience was begging me to tell them, the thought kept me up at night. If they hated me before they’d despise me now. And I kind of liked being Elliot. Not really for any of the reasons I once thought I would like to be Elliot, but because it felt like a shield now. Made it easier to face the day. I woke up and it was like, at least I’m Elliot. I didn’t know why. 

“Elliot’s gotta come back eventually,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be easier to tell them Elliot ran away and you lied about it if he was already back? You could tell them together.”

“You really think he’ll come back?” I asked. I thought so too. But I was afraid to think so, in case I was wrong. It might just be wishful thinking.

She nodded, and paused our show. “He left for something. Once he gets it, he’ll bring it home. At the very least, he’ll come back for you.”

My chest felt lighter after she said that, but I hesitated to believe her. “What makes you think that?”

She shrugged. “You’re the only person he loves.”

She visited me often now, but only as friends. She missed Elliot and so did I. Plus, I think she even liked being around me. The only guy, according to her, that had ever been interested in her as a person. Another time when she was over, she was on her phone lying next to me while I drew a profile of her face in a notebook, I finally asked about the day we had sex. 

“Mikasa?” I asked.

She perked her head up.

“Why’d you have sex with me?” Ever since it had happened, I’d been thinking about it. When a girl comes on to you like that, and you’re like me, and just want to believe a girl just wants to have sex with you that badly, you just let yourself believe it. But it wasn’t like I didn’t know better. 

She paused. Laughed, but not like she was happy. “I guess some part of me wanted…I don’t know. To get back at him. As if he’d care.”

“Oh,” I said, dumbly. That made sense.

But then she added, “And I wanted to know what it was like with someone who wanted me. It’s different. It’s better.”

“But you didn’t want me,” I said, then, feeling my heart sink.

“I did. I just didn’t have feelings for you,” she said.

“Not like I did.”

“No.”

We were silent for a minute. 

“But, it’s okay, right? Because you don’t like me like that anymore.”

I jerked my head back, and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t? How do you know?”

She laughed. “You like someone else.”

I blushed. “How do you know?”

She smiled at me, and set her phone down. She took my sketchbook from my hands and flipped to page one. The first fifteen or so pages were either drawings of random objects, fan art, or a portrait of her. They were old, so they were drawn from a distance, or drawn inaccurately, because I’d been trying to draw from memory. She continued to page through the drawings. The next ten or so were all unfinished. Drawings I’d attempted, but had never completed, because I’d had no real desire to draw. Only a desire to distract myself. They were from the time after Elliot left. And then, after that, every drawing was of Marco. The drawing I was working on now was the first I’d drawn of Mikasa in ages. 

“I saw them earlier,” she said, “When you were trying to find a blank page.”

I froze, attempted to swallow, and gauge her expression.

“I know he’s gay,” Mikasa said. “He had a thing for Eren for a while. Eren told me about it. They’re friends, but Eren’s straight. It fucked with their friendship for a while. Not because Eren has a problem with it. I think he just felt guilty he was causing his friend heartbreak and couldn’t do anything about it. And Marco suddenly wasn’t the same around him anymore. Eren was really upset about it. Then…Marco moved on out of nowhere and…they were back to normal. Mostly.”

I remembered the day Marco confessed his feelings to me. How panicked he looked. He’d told me that every time he told a guy he liked them they were never the same around him again. And that it wasn’t like I was the only guy he’d liked in the past four years. I felt a mix of shock and jealousy. Eren was just as popular and good-looking as Elliot. If he’d liked guys, I wouldn’t have a boyfriend right now. It made me both want to punch him and hide from him. 

“A few weeks ago… Before I knew you were Jean, before I even thought Elliot was cheating on me, actually,” Mikasa started, “Eren suddenly brought it up again. He was like, ‘I think I have to kill your boyfriend, Mikasa’ and like, I didn’t know what to say. That could mean anything. Eren threatens to kill people all the time, especially once he learns I’m sleeping with them,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I wondered if he’d threatened to kill me recently.

“But I humored him and was like, ‘Oh yeah, why?’ And then he asked me how much I liked Elliot and if, you know, we were serious. _That_ was definitely weird, so I got worried. I asked him why. He said, ‘I think I know how Marco got over me. I think…I think he likes Elliot.’ And I was like, ‘So?’ I mean, who cares if he did? That didn’t change anything between Elliot and me. But then Eren was like, ‘And I’m sorry, Mikasa…but I think Elliot’s gay too.”

My eyes widened. “He thought Elliot was cheating on you with Marco?”

She nodded. “But, soon as he said it, I felt better. I mean, I understand how he got there. Elliot’s…in touch with his feminine side. But I knew he wasn’t gay. He just didn’t love me like he thought he did.” 

She shrugged then, like it was no big deal. “But anyway…Since then, Eren’s been certain the reason Marco got over him was because he fell for Elliot. Now I know he got the wrong twin. Right?”

I blushed. “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got better things to do. But you’re together, aren’t you? You should be, if you’re not.”

I hesitated. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to say these things out loud. It would always be hard. “Yeah,” I said, finally. “We are.”

She was quiet for a moment. I closed my sketchbook and set it aside. It felt like something I needed to protect now. What if my parents saw the drawings and figured it out like Mikasa had? They didn’t seem quite as intuitive as her, but my mom did say that she and my dad had suspected I was gay. And I was the son that liked to draw. And these drawings were dated. If they connected any of those dots, they’d not only know I’m Jean but they’d know I’m bi. 

“The day after we slept together and Marco rang the doorbell,” Mikasa began. “Were you two already together?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. We – I wasn’t ready to be with him.”

“Why?” she asked.

I looked away from her. “I don’t know. It’s hard to get used to. Being…liking him like I liked you. Liking any guy like that.”

“Is that why you tried to sleep with me as Elliot?” she asked.

“What?” 

“You were going to sleep with me even before I figured you out. You were going to try to anyway. Even though you hadn’t tried anything until then.”

I swallowed thickly. “Yeah. I guess. I – I didn’t want to have my first time with him.”

She raised her eyebrows.

I scrubbed my hands down my face “I know, okay. I know. It was shitty of me. It’s not like I don’t feel bad about it, okay?”

She pursed her lips. And then she said, “Have you made it up to him?”

I looked at her then, and realized, no, I hadn’t.

“Have you…?” she started and didn’t finish, I guessed because she didn’t want to embarrass me.

“I mean…not – not all the way…”

She blinked. Thought for a moment. “You don’t want to?”

“No – that’s not it. I’m just – I don’t know. Worried I won’t like it.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Why? Did you think you wouldn’t like it with me?”

“No,” I said, right away.

“That doesn’t make sense. I think you’d know, you know, if you wouldn’t like it. I’ve never had sex with a girl but I know I wouldn’t like it. And…I knew before I had sex with a guy the first time that I’d like it,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like something you ‘find out’…”

I combed my fingers through my hair. I knew she was right. I knew even better than her, because I was bi, and this was exactly why I hated straight people sometimes. They always assumed you couldn’t really be bi unless you like, fucked a different gender every day of the week. As if we had to earn our bi-ness. As if we had to prove it. 

And okay, maybe I didn’t put this so eloquently into words when it was happening. I’m older now and have been using the word longer and have dealt with a lot more straight people I hate and have had to defend my sexuality the whole time. But, even then, I felt what I couldn’t put into words. I knew I was bi before I’d slept with anybody, and I knew I didn’t need to sleep with anybody to know. I just…didn’t know I knew. If that makes sense. Or I didn’t take my own word over the word of others, I guess. What I’m trying to say is, it’s everyone else’s fault I was afraid I wouldn’t like having sex with Marco and I hate everyone who made me think that way because I just fucking love it so fucking much, okay.

I found out for sure the day I built up the nerve to try blowing him. I got on my knees in front of where he sat on the bed, and hesitated, like always, because I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. Then I thought about the morning I went down on Mikasa. Days after that happened, I’d realized what she meant when she said no one had ever done that for her before. She didn’t mean that no one had ever eaten her out, which is what I initially assumed. She meant no one had ever made her _come_. And that’s why I’d loved doing it so much. Not because she was a girl and because it was a vagina but because I had actually made her feel good. I wanted to make Marco feel that good. Like no one else ever had. And I _didn’t_ want to just give Marco hand jobs forever. He could do that himself. So finally, I exhaled and slid my mouth down over him. Just like with Mikasa, I didn’t know what I was doing but I winged it and it worked. After he came, I was left with a sore jaw and the biggest fucking grin. 

It solidified, in my mind, that I was bi. It was a real thing and enjoying sex with girls didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it with guys. Men were attractive to me. _He_ was so, so attractive to me. And here’s the thing: the only reason I’d been doubting my sexuality was because I was afraid that I was only pretending to be attracted to Marco. Deep down, I was worried that I was so desperate for love and so desperate to make him happy, anyone happy, that I had lied to myself about wanting him and that having sex with him would force me to finally snap out of it. That’s what I was most afraid of since the day he confessed that he liked me and I kissed him. I didn’t want to snap out of wanting him. I might not have realized until just then that that’s what I was afraid of, but I knew then that it was. It was what he was afraid of too. 

But listen, when a guy warns you he’s about to come in your mouth and your immediate response is not to jerk your head backward so you don’t have to taste it, but to sink down further so that it’s easier to swallow – you probably like dick. Probably no way around that. 

I liked dick. 

After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about having sex with him until we finally did. 

It was the day before the first day of school, and we were in the yard. He was running back to me carrying the football I’d kicked halfway decently. To reward me, he pulled me in by the nape of the neck for a kiss and when he let go I didn’t. I pulled him in so abruptly he dropped the ball and made a noise. I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, even though he was sweaty, and I was sweaty, and we’d been out under the hot sun all afternoon.

“Let’s go inside,” I said.

“Did you bring your swim trunks?” he asked, because that was where we usually went after practice, to cool off.

“I don’t want to swim,” I said, huskily, and Marco instantly blushed.

“Oh,” he said, biting his lip. “Okay – do you want to –”

I pulled him in even closer. “Fuck?”

His eyes glazed over and he deadpanned. He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah – okay.”

Inside his room, we kissed for a while. After my initial moment of courage outside, where the prospect of sex didn’t feel so imminent and intimidating, I lost my nerve. He pulled out lube and a condom from his desk drawer and I stared at it. He just…had it ready. Just there. Because, oh right, he’d done this before.

We got undressed and I held him against me while I kissed him. I still couldn’t get over the head-to-toe skin-on-skin feeling. I kept expecting to get used to it and never did. He looked so fucking cute and innocent and the fact that we were about to do something not cute and _not_ innocent made it that much hotter. 

I kissed him long and hard until he pulled away from me to sit down on the bed. 

I joined him and awkwardly asked, “Do you – Are you – a bottom?” 

He snorted at how stupid I undoubtedly sounded. How not gay I sounded. This wasn’t how it happened in porn or the movies or in my brain. Life didn’t skip the awkward parts.

“I’ve done it once both ways,” he said. “And I _liked_ it, both ways.”

“So it’ll actually feel good for you if I top?” I asked. The only thing still holding me back was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to make it good for him. Frankly, I was convinced guys only pretended to like anal sex. 

He smiled, blushed and looked away from me. “Not at first probably…but then… _yeah_.”

Blood rushed to my dick at that and I couldn’t wait any longer. 

Unfortunately, life didn’t skip the part when he had to prep himself either. I watched, in awe. I’d never paid this much attention to anything before and this was the most I’d ever learned about anything, even in school. Fuck school. This was all I ever wanted to do. We’d wasted so much of the summer because I wasn’t man enough to do the gay. And still wasn’t, in that moment. He’d given me the option to do it myself and I was too much of a chicken-shit. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, easing a third finger into himself. 

I sat up, cross-legged between his thighs. “Does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “It’s just too fucking tight. It’s been a while. This is…inconvenient. I hate this part. Being gay isn’t fair. Having to do this every time. Like waiting in line at the DMV. I just wanna do what I came for, _God._ ”

I laughed at him then. Kissed his knee. Couldn’t resist sliding my hands up and down his thighs. This was different than it was with Mikasa. Not because he was a guy. But because I felt differently about him. I knew where we stood with one another. He was my boyfriend. I was watching my _boyfriend_ finger himself. Like, oh my fucking God. And it was awkward, but not like…uncomfortable. Because we were in it together. It was just fun. Like, hot, yeah. But also, I felt as amused as I might if something embarrassing was happening to him. Like if he was sitting on the toilet and needed me to grab him toilet paper.

Love is funny that way.

And okay – I admit I wasn’t thinking about love in that moment. All this would hit me later, and yeah, the “L” word popping up casually in my head like that, as if it had always been there, and it had always been filed under “Marco” in my memory, would immediately cause a panic attack. But, the point is, it was _better_ than it was with Mikasa, already. Because I fucking loved him and didn’t know it yet.

Anyway, he finished doing what he was doing and then he reached for the condom, tore it open, and slid it on me. Just like that, just like Mikasa had. Apparently, it wasn’t as difficult to do as Sex Ed. had made it sound like.

He pecked me on the lips. “Ready?”

If only he knew how close to drooling I was. “Uh, _fuck_ yes, I am.”

He grinned and fell back into the sheets. He crossed his arms behind his head and smiled at me, waiting. I eased myself over top of him, like I had with Mikasa, but when I tried to push in, I failed like three times.

“What the fuck,” I hissed and Marco snickered at me. “Why isn’t this working? Shut up.”

“Because it’s an exit not an entrance,” he said, replacing my hand with his.

“Never say that again or I’ll break up with you.”

He laughed even harder. “Here,” he said, and then he helped guide me in.

I groaned and damn near melted on top of him. He _was_ tight. _So_ tight. I could fucking cry, already. “ _Fuck_ , Marco.”

He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes, clearly trying to hold back a wince. 

I mentally slapped myself for checking out so quickly. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, just. Give me a second. You’re…bigger than I thought.”

I smirked. “Oh yeah?”

He rolled his eyes. “Try not to let it go to your head.”

“Like…bigger than the last guy?” I asked.

He grinned. “Nope.”

“What the –”

He giggled when I visibly deflated. “Kidding,” he said. 

“I could use the confidence right now, you know,” I grumbled and he fought a smile. Then he placed both his hands on either side of my face, and pressed his forehead against mine, suddenly close, changing the mood. 

“It feels good now,” he whispered.

I bit my lip and started thrusting.

My only thought the whole time was just to last for him. Last as long as I could. Last just one more fucking second, and then just one more, and one more. If it killed me, last for him. Because oh my God, it was pure fucking heaven and I had to fight every second for one more. He wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my shoulders. His lips trailed up and down my neck, in between gasping and moaning my name. Whenever I had to slow down or stop for a moment, I kept my hand on him, stroking him the way he likes. At least, if nothing else, I could make him feel good that way. 

But then, while stroking him, he bit his lip through a grin. His eyes rolled back and God, I never thought someone smiling, or laughing, or looking so fucking happy could be so sexy. People didn’t smile in porn, or laugh, or look happy. I didn’t think being happy was a sexy thing. But it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen on him. 

“ _Jean_ ,” he moaned, closing his eyes, throwing his head back, and letting his mouth fall open with his smile. “Fuck, please…please, just fuck me harder.”

I pinned his hips down against mine at that. Squeezed my eyes shut and breathed in and out deeply. “I’m too close,” I whined. 

He pulled me in by the nape of my neck, so that our lips were touching as he spoke. “I’m right there too. Don’t worry about lasting, just fuck me, _please_.”

“Oh, fuck,” I whimpered, and gave in, just straight fucking _ramming_ my cock into his tight sweet ass until he came, arching off the bed and wailing my name. I growled against his throat, wrapped my arm around the small of his waist, and slammed into him, fucking him through it, until it rose in me too, base to tip, just pure, white-hot bliss.

I collapsed there, clammy, covered in sweat, and gasping. He still wore a fucked-out, slap-happy expression, and I barely had enough energy to keep my eyes open. I wanted to fall asleep inside him.

I couldn’t believe I ever thought there was a chance in hell I wouldn’t like that.

Afterwards, we showered together. Even as he shampooed his hair, I couldn’t keep my hands or lips off of him. All I wanted to do was touch him. And when we both were done washing, we still stood in the hot streaming water and steam, just holding each other and making out slowly. 

“That was so fucking good,” I finally said.

Marco smiled. “I know. Everyone who knows I’m gay acts like…like it’s just this nonstop bummer for me. But whenever I have sex…I don’t know. I just feel so bad for people who think like that.”

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t really thought about it in broad terms like that. I meant more like, _us_ having sex was amazing, not that gay sex, specifically, was amazing. But, now that he made me think about it, I knew for a fact that my parents would never believe that it could be like that for two men. That it could be as sweet, or romantic, or fun for us as it was for straight people. And I knew firsthand that it could be. I’d had sex with a girl and a guy, and frankly, fucking was fucking. It was just fucking awesome.

But I loved it with him so much more. 

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” Marco whispered.

I looked him in the eyes. “I never didn’t want you.”

He smiled at me, sweetly. “I know. But you changed your mind about being with me.”

I shook my head. “You changed it for me.”

He grinned then, and I kissed his grin.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, my tumblr URL is oryx-and-thickney@tumblr.com!


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